Hi all, so many posts on this thread that I am having trouble looking through looking for a solution to my problem. I have FiOS w/the 6416 DVR and a Mac Mini with just the 1 firewire port. If I plug the firewire cable from the DVR and daisy chain it onto the back of one of my firewire drives the system locks up when I try to access one of the firewire drives. I have not tried plugging the 6416 straight into the firewire port since this would be useless w/o the firewire drive to save the recordings to.

Anybody else run into this problem?

I use a G4 with avcbrowser and avcvideocap and am able to capture the stream Can you please elaborate on that? I've tried a whole host of things and when I try to play the m2t files I capped on the mac on the PC but they don't work in VLC. I'm sure the PC is fast enough to handle HD. I can run the entire Adobe Creative Suite all at once with no problems.

Here's some pics of my set up. The channel on TV I'm supposed to be recording is 293.

http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/3705/avcvidcapcapscreen2hl6.png

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/9497/avcbrowsercontrolpanel1gs1.png

http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/9586/avcbrowsercontrolpanel2cs1.png

http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/5/avcbrowsercontrolpanel3yv6.png

http://img105.imageshack.us/img105/3410/avcbrowsercontrolpanel4dj0.png

Can you please elaborate on that? I've tried a whole host of things and when I try to play the m2t files I capped on the mac on the PC but they don't work in VLC. I'm sure the PC is fast enough to handle HD. I can run the entire Adobe Creative Suite all at once with no problems.

Here's some pics of my set up. The channel on TV I'm supposed to be recording is 293.

http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/3705/avcvidcapcapscreen2hl6.png

Your problem is right there at the bottom: "Copy Once"

That means its 5c encrypted and the Mac will not be able to capture a viewable stream.

It should read "Copy Freely" to be able to record a good stream.

Your problem is right there at the bottom: "Copy Once"

That means its 5c encrypted and the Mac will not be able to capture a viewable stream.

It should read "Copy Freely" to be able to record a good stream.Thanks for the response.

As I mentioned earlier, all my channels were set to "Copy Freely". Now all of a sudden they've become "Copy Once". Any idea how I can change this back?

EDIT: I figured out what the problem was. All I had to do was change the firewire port. One of the ports is set to "Copy Freely" and the other is set to "Copy Once". Thanks for all the help guys. Now I just need to figure out how to process these m2t files.

It looks like I spoke too soon. I think now the actual problem is not the ports but the fact that some shows are "Copy Freely" and others are "Copy Once". Which is strange because I have several episodes of the same show and some episodes are "Copy Freely" and others are "Copy Once". Is the DVR assigning the encryption at random?

It looks like I spoke too soon. I think now the actual problem is not the ports but the fact that some shows are "Copy Freely" and others are "Copy Once". Which is strange because I have several episodes of the same show and some episodes are "Copy Freely" and others are "Copy Once". Is the DVR assigning the encryption at random?

Unlikely. It's your cable company most likely.

Unlikely. It's your cable company most likely.So, there's nothing I can do about that?

So, there's nothing I can do about that?

If it's a premium or pay channel, like HBO or ESPN, nothing much you can do.

If it is over the air channel like CBS or ABC, they are supposed to have those set to copy freely. If they don't, you can call the cable company to complain, since that is not legal. Good luck finding someone who knows what you are talking about though. The first line people usually don't know anything about the broadcast flags.

If it's a premium or pay channel, like HBO or ESPN, nothing much you can do.

If it is over the air channel like CBS or ABC, they are supposed to have those set to copy freely. If they don't, you can call the cable company to complain, since that is not legal. Good luck finding someone who knows what you are talking about though. The first line people usually don't know anything about the broadcast flags.The strange thing is that I have several different shows from one channel (like HDNet) and some are set to Copy Once and others are set to Copy Freely. I even have several episodes of the same show and the flags are different. So I'm confused about how the flags are set.

EDIT: So, what's the way around the encryption? Do I need to use a different archiving method?

The strange thing is that I have several different shows from one channel (like HDNet) and some are set to Copy Once and others are set to Copy Freely. I even have several episodes of the same show and the flags are different. So I'm confused about how the flags are set.

EDIT: So, what's the way around the encryption? Do I need to use a different archiving method?

The encryption is under the control of your cable company. The company is responsible for fulfilling whatever contract obligations it has to the program source provider. That contract includes rules concerning the "copy" regimes. Your cable provider can make downloads to its subscriber boxes at any time and if your box is powered down, could make the downloads when the box is powered up. Thus the changes in copy regimes may reflect what was downloaded. The download may not even be mainly concerned with the copy regime, but the regime often comes along.

The cable company is required only to make a FW port "available". It is not required to support it or deploy it as a source port for you. You can protest but unless your cable provider has a stated policy that commits it to providing copy freely, regardless of channel, there is little you can do.

I've gone back a few pages and didn't see this mentioned. I'm using my G4 iBook with a Motorola 6412. Everything works with AVCVideoCap as it is supposed to except for one nuisance. If I try to capture a second recording without first quitting and reopening AVCVideoCap the second recording will not open in either Streamclip or VLC. Is this common or just a problem for my Mac?

I haven't quite tried that, but I have found that if I use the channel change feature of AVCVideocap in timer mode, the recording doesn't come out, it records, but the file either won't open or is a blank screen. I found that it needs to change the channel, wait a second or two, then start recording for the file to be ok. Could be similar to what you are experiencing when you go right from one recording to another.

Hi

I am new to this Mac DVR via firewire thing. I currently have an eyetv200, eyetv 2.4 and comcast DVR with firewire ports enabled. I currently have the DVR hooked up through the RCA ports on the Eyetv 200 and I hate having to change the channel via remote everytime I want to watch something else. I played with apples firewire SDK apps and found them to be okay but laking in easy of use, play back and recording. I know I could spend an extra $150 or more to get an IR device to simulate the remote, but whats the point when the DVR can be controled via firewire, Is there some way that I can have eyetv change the DVR via firewire with a simple app or plugin or help with the code since I am new to the programing thing

I don't even know of an IR blaster that EyeTV's software can control much less of any way EyeTV can communicate via Firewire to a Motorola DVR.

Firewire capture from the Comcast DVR (which is what I have, too) has a number of issues. One is that some channels can't be copied that way. Another is that you only get whatever is frontmost and cannot always be certain which tuner is going to be frontmost when doing simultaneous recordings. Then there is the issue that the video stream from digital channels is not to the video DVD spec. Maybe that isn't a concern of yours if you're only wanting to play them on your Mac and not burn video DVDs. Another issue I'm having is that I must quit and reopen AVCvideoCap between each recording or the second recording won't play.

Why I'm telling you all this is to discourage you from spending a lot of time (or money) trying to automate capturing streams from the DVR via Firewire. My guess is too many of those recordings won't play even if you find a way to automate the process.

Maybe ElGato will come out with a way to use an EyeTV Hybrid with the Comcast cablecard.

From the looking around I have done ired with Irtrans works with eyeTV but its 99 Euro which is around $150 USD or more + shipping

Try the following modified version of AVCBrowser in conjunction with VLC.

Get a copy of VLC and copy it to your Applications folder.
Run AVCBrowser.
Find the source device in the AVCBrowser window, and open the device control panel.
"Open" the device using the upper-right button in the device control window.
Select the "Panel" tab on the device control window.
Push the "Start Viewer" button.
Watch TV.
You can use the other Panel control buttons to change the channel on the source device, etc.

What AVCBrowser does is:
Launch VLC and have it listen on a particlar UDP port.
Makes a connection to the source device's firewire output, and starts receiving a stream.
Opens an IP socket on the local-node/port.
Streams the data over to VLC.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for posting this (especially the latest AVCBrowser)

I have been looking how to do this all over the internet. I almost feel like I should send you money.

<3 <3 <3 <3

For future reference to other people who are looking for this:

THIS IS HOW YOU STREAM TV FROM YOUR SETUP BOX TO YOUR MAC WITHOUT RECORDING.

Guys!

I am planning to get either the new iMac with the Intel core 2 duo or extreme or one of the new MacBook Pros with similar Intel core 2 chips.

Will these MACs allow for firwire connection to Time Warner Cable's 8300HD DVR so I can capture my "DVR Recorded" 1080i HD shows. My hard drives on the 8300HD DVR is filling up and my DELL computers have never been able to consistently capture these HD programs through firewire 1394.

Any help is appreciated....

Paul

Guys!

I am planning to get either the new iMac with the Intel core 2 duo or extreme or one of the new MacBook Pros with similar Intel core 2 chips.

Will these MACs allow for firwire connection to Time Warner Cable's 8300HD DVR so I can capture my "DVR Recorded" 1080i HD shows. My hard drives on the 8300HD DVR is filling up and my DELL computers have never been able to consistently capture these HD programs through firewire 1394.

Any help is appreciated....

Paul

I've been using a year old MacBook Pro 2GHz Intel Core Duo to reliably firewire capture recorded, copy freely shows from TWC 8300HD for the past 10 months. However, playback has some problems on Mac or Mac to SONY HDTV. Even folks at Apple Care and local Apple Store don't have a solution. For example:
-Videos with fast movement require deinterlacing to remove sawtooth edges.
Some say this shouldn't be a problem when displayed on TV's but it is on my
setup.
-VLC can be set to deinterlace but rewind/forward with remote is choppy.
-Remote playback with QuickTime Player is smooth (after converting m2t from
DVR to MPEG) but to the best of my knowledge, cannot directly deinterlace. One
can use a variety of export/encoding options but these take a lot of time and
increase file size.
-A post about a page ago suggested using MVIX 760 Media Center for playback, but
haven't tried this yet.
Any solutions to these issues are appreciated.

Guys!

I am planning to get either the new iMac with the Intel core 2 duo or extreme or one of the new MacBook Pros with similar Intel core 2 chips.

Will these MACs allow for firwire connection to Time Warner Cable's 8300HD DVR so I can capture my "DVR Recorded" 1080i HD shows. My hard drives on the 8300HD DVR is filling up and my DELL computers have never been able to consistently capture these HD programs through firewire 1394.

Any help is appreciated....

Paul

Almost any MAC will do a good job at firewire capturing from a cablebox. I use a g4 450MHZ to capture from the 8300HD box and it does a fantastic job with no overruns or dropped frames. So you don't have to go with a power house MAC configuration. The main reason you may want to go with a power house such as what you describe is if you wish to playback the video on the MAC or use it as your main editing/encoding machine. I have done some encoding to DVD with the G4 and although it is slow it does the job. I myself do my encodeing on a PC and my playback through the MVIX 760HD media center so I don't have the need for a fast MAC. So the desission as to you getting a fast MAC should be based on what you want to do with it. If its going to be your main computer then go for it. But if all your going to do is use it to capture video then it may not be such a good idea.

Try the following modified version of AVCBrowser (http://www.yanoweb.com/AVCBrowser_2_2.zip) in conjunction with VLC.

Get a copy of VLC and copy it to your Applications folder.
Run AVCBrowser.
Find the source device in the AVCBrowser window, and open the device control panel.
"Open" the device using the upper-right button in the device control window.
Select the "Panel" tab on the device control window.
Push the "Start Viewer" button.
Watch TV.
You can use the other Panel control buttons to change the channel on the source device, etc.

What AVCBrowser does is:
Launch VLC and have it listen on a particlar UDP port.
Makes a connection to the source device's firewire output, and starts receiving a stream.
Opens an IP socket on the local-node/port.
Streams the data over to VLC.

Cool...but, I want to do the opposite of this. I know I can use VirtualDVHS to play m2t files and view them on my mits HDTV. But, I have a bunch of HD mpeg2 files that i previously converted from m2t to mpeg and removed the commercials. But VirtualDVHS won't play mpeg files.

Can I use your app with VLC (or something else) to stream the mpeg files live to m2t that will be viewable by my mits TV so I don't have to re-convert my pile of mpeg files back to m2t files?

Cool...but, I want to do the opposite of this. I know I can use VirtualDVHS to play m2t files and view them on my mits HDTV. But, I have a bunch of HD mpeg2 files that i previously converted from m2t to mpeg and removed the commercials. But VirtualDVHS won't play mpeg files.

Can I use your app with VLC (or something else) to stream the mpeg files live to m2t that will be viewable by my mits TV so I don't have to re-convert my pile of mpeg files back to m2t files?


Does the HDTV have DVI / HDMI/ VGA in? If so just hook your mac into the TV via DVI out -> adapter -> TV and use VLC to play your recording on your HDTV.

Does the HDTV have DVI / HDMI/ VGA in? If so just hook your mac into the TV via DVI out -> adapter -> TV and use VLC to play your recording on your HDTV.

I have the inputs on the tv, but my laptop isn't fast enough to play back HD files real time. (It will play m2t files streaming to the tv with VirtualDVHS, but not VLC....too choppy). My tower is plenty fast, but it is not in the same room as my TV.

I suppose if I buy the macbook pro that I've been thinking about, this would work.....But I just spent all this money on the tv so I have none for a new computer right now

I have the inputs on the tv, but my laptop isn't fast enough to play back HD files real time. (It will play m2t files streaming to the tv with VirtualDVHS, but not VLC....too choppy). My tower is plenty fast, but it is not in the same room as my TV.

I suppose if I buy the macbook pro that I've been thinking about, this would work.....But I just spent all this money on the tv so I have none for a new computer right now

Interesting, I guess I never looked at my CPU utilization when playing back HD on my mac book because it plays fine. What kind of laptop are you using? A Mac Mini would also work for your needs and you can get the older version for under $500.

Sorry I could not be more help on the streaming MPEG part...

Anyone looking for a Mac G4 tower already setup for recording HD via firewire?

Mine has been collecting dust since I ditched my 3412 for a TiVo S3.

Specs:

400Mhz Mac G4 Tower

512MB Ram

20GB OS Drive (running OS X 10.4.10 Tiger)

100GB Data Drive

Gigabit NIC

USB 2.0/ Firewire Card

Records HD error free.

Interesting, I guess I never looked at my CPU utilization when playing back HD on my mac book because it plays fine. What kind of laptop are you using? A Mac Mini would also work for your needs and you can get the older version for under $500.

Sorry I could not be more help on the streaming MPEG part...

It's an mid-line iBook G4 1GHz. My dual G5 plays HD fine, but the iBook can't play it at all. chokes up immediately.

But VirtualDVHS on the iBook can play back HD to the TV, because it is just "streaming to the TV" and the TV is doing the decoding and all the graphics work. My whole problem is VirtualDVHS can only play m2t files, but once I cut out the commercials, it gets resaved as mpeg files, not m2t.

I thought about an itel mini, but I don't need a third computer...If I do get a macbook pro, it will work great. just not going to buy one soon.

It's an mid-line iBook G4 1GHz. My dual G5 plays HD fine, but the iBook can't play it at all. chokes up immediately.

But VirtualDVHS on the iBook can play back HD to the TV, because it is just "streaming to the TV" and the TV is doing the decoding and all the graphics work. My whole problem is VirtualDVHS can only play m2t files, but once I cut out the commercials, it gets resaved as mpeg files, not m2t.

I thought about an itel mini, but I don't need a third computer...If I do get a macbook pro, it will work great. just not going to buy one soon.

You may want to consider doing your edits with videoredo. Its a simple to use .ts editor that will allow you to save the edited file as a .ts file which will play in virtualDVHS. www.videoredo.com

You may want to consider doing your edits with videoredo. Its a simple to use .ts editor that will allow you to save the edited file as a .ts file which will play in virtualDVHS. www.videoredo.com

Vidoeredo only appears to be windoze software....I can make ts files with VLC or Mpegstreamclip on the mac. I thought I tried ts fiiles and VirtualDVHS didn't play them. I will have to try it again though.

Unfortunately, I have about 75 shows recorded in HD, and have already burned the HD data file with mpeg extension to DVD. I would like to find a way to stream that file through to my Mits TV without re-converting all of them to ts files.

So my cable provider Astound! just raised rates on me, doubling the monthly cost of HD programming. I have been considering moving to Direct TV for sometime now.

Right now I have Scientific Atlanta Explorer 3250HD. It works great streaming hooked into my mac via Firewire. Has anyone tried any of the Direct TV HD receivers, specifically the HD DVR new receivers? Do they work the same way?

So my cable provider Astound! just raised rates on me, doubling the monthly cost of HD programming. I have been considering moving to Direct TV for sometime now.

Right now I have Scientific Atlanta Explorer 3250HD. It works great streaming hooked into my mac via Firewire. Has anyone tried any of the Direct TV HD receivers, specifically the HD DVR new receivers? Do they work the same way?
There are no FireWire outputs from any DirecTV receiver from the factory.

There have been some after-market mod's for some of the older receivers, but I am not current on any mod's for recent DirecTV receivers or DVRs.

There are no FireWire outputs from any DirecTV receiver from the factory.

There have been some after-market mod's for some of the older receivers, but I am not current on any mod's for recent DirecTV receivers or DVRs.

Well that makes my decision easy. I guess only Cable companies were required to have a Firewire port on their boxes then?

After hours of trying different ways to get this to work, I need to ask for some help.

I have an Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300 HD connected by firewire to my MacBook Pro. I used the Apple AVC VideoCap application to record from the box. AVC does show the Explorer 8300 as being recognized. I have tried setting the channel input to the channel I have the box tuned to, also set to "1", and also set to "63". I have set recording times from 1 min to 30 minutes. All recorded files except the recordings from my HD channels show "0kb" as the .m2t file size. The files recorded from the HD channels show files sizes up to more than 1 GB, depending on the amount of time recorded.

I have repeatedly tried to play back these recorded files with VLC and with Streamclip, but I get no audio or video. I did drop the folder with the recorded files onto the VLC app to launch it. Any ideas of what my problem is?

Thanks - Ted

After hours of trying different ways to get this to work, I need to ask for some help.

I have an Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300 HD connected by firewire to my MacBook Pro. I used the Apple AVC VideoCap application to record from the box. AVC does show the Explorer 8300 as being recognized. I have tried setting the channel input to the channel I have the box tuned to, also set to "1", and also set to "63". I have set recording times from 1 min to 30 minutes. All recorded files except the recordings from my HD channels show "0kb" as the .m2t file size. The files recorded from the HD channels show files sizes up to more than 1 GB, depending on the amount of time recorded.

I have repeatedly tried to play back these recorded files with VLC and with Streamclip, but I get no audio or video. I did drop the folder with the recorded files onto the VLC app to launch it. Any ideas of what my problem is?

Thanks - Ted

You can only record digital channels this way. That is why the non-digitals show up as 0kb.

For the ones that do have a file size...
One thing you can try first (but this doesn't always work) is open the file in mpeg streamclip and before doing anything, press "command F". then "OK". After a minute or so it might play fine. (oh, you have to have the quicktime mpeg2 component installed ($20 or something) from apple to view the file this way.)

If that didn't work
Open VLC.
Chose "File...Open File", "Browse"...pick the m2t file. check the box next to "Streaming/Saving". Then click the "settings" button. On the box that pops up, click "browse and chose a place to save the new file, and call it "Something.ts" Click "save." Make sure the encapsulation method pop-up box says "MPEG TS". Then click OK, and then OK again.

Sometimes, the files just don't play right away, and this fixes it for me 98% of the time. This will make another file the same size (1GB or however big the original was), so make sure you have enough hard drive space.

I then use MPEG Streamclip on this new file to cut out commercials.

Josh: Thanks for your reply. I religiously followed the "VLC method" you set out, but all five m2t files I tried this with ended up as ts files with zero kb size. All 5 original m2t files did have a file size shown for them when I selected them. Any idea what I might be doing wrong?

Thanks - Ted

Is there any way around the copy once encryption. This totaly sucks....I would like to use my content however I want in my own home........

Josh: Thanks for your reply. I religiously followed the "VLC method" you set out, but all five m2t files I tried this with ended up as ts files with zero kb size. All 5 original m2t files did have a file size shown for them when I selected them. Any idea what I might be doing wrong?

Thanks - Ted

Sorry, I don't know what else to have you try. The above VLC method always works for me....

I get the files like. But everything is copy once even the local channels

Ted Mac - I've got both the Scientifc Atlanta 8300HD and the 8240HD and I've got them both working. I've run into your same problems and finally got them solved. I got a lot of help by reading these threads and I'd like to give back by trying to help you. Let me know if you're still having problems and we can go from there...feel free to contact me via email as well. hookalakupua15@aol.com

Thanks to all of those that have posted...your information was invaluable!

I'm having an issue that I've not seen addressed here (or I missed it - lots of great content!). I've got a newer iMac that I'm trying to hook up to my 8300HD. Problem is, every time I hook up the firewire cable, the dvr reboots. I've tried having them both on and both off. Unplug the firewire cable and the dvr works fine. I'm not sure what the problem could be.

I'm wanting to record SugarLand's performance at SummerFest on MHD tomorrow @ 11am EST. I'm thinking I'm not going to get this resolved by then. Would someone be willing to record it for me? I would be very grateful.

I'm really wanting to get this to work. I hate the idea of not being able to keep the stuff that I've recorded. I know I can push it out through the rca jacks, but that's certainly not going to be HD, so really what's the point?

Thanx for any help!

Set-up: Knology supplied SA 3250 HD, PB G4 400 TI, OS X.4.10, AVCBrowser 1.1(1.0.3), and VirtualDVHS 1.2. Both downloaded from the SDK 20 pkg.

I am connecting the 3250 and PB with FW cable. I then startup AVCBrowser and it sees the 3250. Clicking on the Device Controller button pops up a window with various info. The first is input plugs with a value of 0 and no data. the second is output plugs with a value of 1. In the data window, I see #=1, Online=1, broadcast=0, p2p=1, channel=0, rate=2, overhead=0, payload=146, and the rate button is S400. Virtual DVHS under recorder shows connections=0, channel=1, speed=100, stream=0, bitrate=0 and packets tored=0. When I hit record, I get a file with zero data. Also after a retry VDVHS usually freezes and I either force quit or reboot.

What am I missing here?

I've just recently begun archiving my recorded video files from my SA 8300HD by using AVCVideoCap. However, since I've recently come over from PC firewire recording/editing I have a few questions...

1) Is AVCVideoCap the currently recommended application for recording HD on a MAC? I've seen others mention iRecord, Virtual D-VHS etc so I wanted to ensure that AVCVideoCap was the best choice.

2) Although AVCVideoCap records to .m2t file format, I've noticed that I can change this file extension to .ts and it will also play in VLC. I thought the default format stored on the PVR was .ts so I wanted to know if there was any difference between .m2t and .ts?

3) What is the currently recommended application to edit out commercials from the resulting file?

4) What is the currently recommended application to clean-up the resulting file?

5) As far as a complete workflow for firewire recording, is there any other steps that can be recommended besides those I've mentioned?

Thanks in advance

Any way around copy once????? or am I dreaming of the day I can DL hd to my mac from the cable box

I've just recently begun archiving my recorded video files from my SA 8300HD by using AVCVideoCap. However, since I've recently come over from PC firewire recording/editing I have a few questions...

1) Is AVCVideoCap the currently recommended application for recording HD on a MAC? I've seen others mention iRecord, Virtual D-VHS etc so I wanted to ensure that AVCVideoCap was the best choice.


For grabbing already recorded content, I would say yes.


2) Although AVCVideoCap records to .m2t file format, I've noticed that I can change this file extension to .ts and it will also play in VLC. I thought the default format stored on the PVR was .ts so I wanted to know if there was any difference between .m2t and .ts?

These are just extensions and have nothing to do with the content. ".m2t" will play in VLC too if you tell it to. :)


3) What is the currently recommended application to edit out commercials from the resulting file?

For people that have the EyeTV software, that is good. For people that have the QuickTime MPEG component, MPEGStreamClip is good. For people that have neither, the QuickTime MPEG component is relatively inexpensive and let's you use MPEGStreamClip which is fairly nice.


4) What is the currently recommended application to clean-up the resulting file?

Clean-up how?

Any way around copy once????? or am I dreaming of the day I can DL hd to my mac from the cable box

As far as I know, you are currently dreaming :(

Set-up: Knology supplied SA 3250 HD, PB G4 400 TI, OS X.4.10, AVCBrowser 1.1(1.0.3), and VirtualDVHS 1.2. Both downloaded from the SDK 20 pkg.

I am connecting the 3250 and PB with FW cable. I then startup AVCBrowser and it sees the 3250. Clicking on the Device Controller button pops up a window with various info. The first is input plugs with a value of 0 and no data. the second is output plugs with a value of 1. In the data window, I see #=1, Online=1, broadcast=0, p2p=1, channel=0, rate=2, overhead=0, payload=146, and the rate button is S400. Virtual DVHS under recorder shows connections=0, channel=1, speed=100, stream=0, bitrate=0 and packets tored=0. When I hit record, I get a file with zero data. Also after a retry VDVHS usually freezes and I either force quit or reboot.

What am I missing here?

Get the current SDK (23) and try AVCVideoCap.

Get the current SDK (23) and try AVCVideoCap.

Success last night with AVCVideoCap. I recorded a 5-min test of movie on HDNetMovie. I used VLC for playback. Picture was very clear but alot of combing of objects in motion. I hope that is from the slow (G4 500) processor. Will play again tonight with G4 1.5 ghz PB to see how it does. Also need to hook up to the TV via the A/V receiver and see how playback looks.

Brett

Success last night with AVCVideoCap. I recorded a 5-min test of movie on HDNetMovie. I used VLC for playback. Picture was very clear but alot of combing of objects in motion. I hope that is from the slow (G4 500) processor. Will play again tonight with G4 1.5 ghz PB to see how it does. Also need to hook up to the TV via the A/V receiver and see how playback looks.

Brett

I use the suggestion in WIFI-SPY's post 5/11/07 and it removes the combing. Go to VLC Preferences and choose Video, Filters, Deinterlace and Blend or Bob. However fast forward/rewind in VLC is not as smooth as the DVR remote that you are used to.

Success last night with AVCVideoCap. I recorded a 5-min test of movie on HDNetMovie. I used VLC for playback. Picture was very clear but alot of combing of objects in motion. I hope that is from the slow (G4 500) processor. Will play again tonight with G4 1.5 ghz PB to see how it does. Also need to hook up to the TV via the A/V receiver and see how playback looks.

Brett

Your Powerbook may do better, but HD is very graphic intesive. You really need a g5 (preferrably Dual processor) or intel mac to watch HD.

There was a thread on another forum dealing with HD on the mac. This guy had a hack to help use the graphics card more for easily watching HD on a g4. I didn't really mess with it b/c I have a g5. Plus it gets pretty technical, I think you need to be comfortable with the developer tools. The link is here (http://www.defyne.org/dvb/accellent.html).

Slightly off topic, if you have a g5 tower with pci or pci-x slots (pci express will not work) , you can use software also from this (http://www.defyne.org/dvb)site to record HD content with certain windows pci hdtv cards. I have been using this for 2 years now and it works flawlessly 99% of the time. No firewire cables to mess with. The cards that work with his software are "aging quickly" and are hard to find though.

Looks like I need to disable power saving features for recording. Tried a delayed video capture and it did not work. Assumed that it was due that the computer was asleep. Turned off sleep mode so second try recorded but with error. Based on file size, it does not look like it recorded the full hour. Forgot to turn off screen saver. Got that turned off and successfully recorded a full length HD movie except that I did not allocate enough time...darn it. Still need to bring down the faster G4 PB and try playback with it. Currently using VLC w/ Bob or Blend enabled.

Update:

I am getting mixed results with AVCVideoCap. I was able to record most of "Hunt for Red Octorber" (did not set time long enough). I checked playback and it looks good. There were no errors. I then recorded an episode of "Firefly" and it reported one error but the little bit that I played in VLC looked fine. Next was a recording of "ST Enterprise". Have a 4 gb file but VLC cannot play it back and reports an error. Last night, I tried a delayed recording with the SDK 25 version of "Cliffhanger" only to wake up to a 0 gb file. I brought down the faster (1.5 ghz) G4 PB and will be trying another delayed recording of "STE". I had disabled power saving settings and screen saver. My setup includes an ext FW drive to which the files are recorded and the 3250 is "piggy-backed" to the FW drive. Any thoughts? Based on other posts, it seems that others are more successful at capturing video with a similar set-up and slower processor.

Thanks,

Brett

[QUOTE=joshMV4;11551562]Your Powerbook may do better, but HD is very graphic intesive. You really need a g5 (preferrably Dual processor) or intel mac to watch HD.
QUOTE]

My plan is to eventually buy a mini for this purpose. I am testing my system with the G4 PB to make sure that I can successfully incorporate a Mac into the A/V system before final purchase. I do not plan to buy until after Leopard comes out. Other equipment that it looks like I need are: transcoder for component output and audio cable for digital output. I think that my audio digital audio cable connected to the Apple Express can be used. My H-K AV635 does not have VGA or HDMI connection. It will cross-convert the S-video signal to component out but I am assuming that the transcoder to component would give a better video signal than the s-video connection.

Brett

Get the current SDK (23) and try AVCVideoCap.

I went to the Apple website and could not find the SDK software in the d/l section. Did a search on AVCvideocap and the other apps to no avail. Can you post the link?

thanks,

Brett

I went to the Apple website and could not find the SDK software in the d/l section. Did a search on AVCvideocap and the other apps to no avail. Can you post the link?

thanks,

Brett

http://developer.apple.com/sdk/

You have to look in the developers' section.

http://developer.apple.com/sdk/

You have to look in the developers' section.

You need to be an ADC (apple developer community) member and sign in to download from the above link. This is free by the way.

I also think you have to have the developer tools installed to use the latest firewire sdk.

Update:

I am getting mixed results with AVCVideoCap. I was able to record most of "Hunt for Red Octorber" (did not set time long enough). I checked playback and it looks good. There were no errors. I then recorded an episode of "Firefly" and it reported one error but the little bit that I played in VLC looked fine. Next was a recording of "ST Enterprise". Have a 4 gb file but VLC cannot play it back and reports an error. Last night, I tried a delayed recording with the SDK 25 version of "Cliffhanger" only to wake up to a 0 gb file. I brought down the faster (1.5 ghz) G4 PB and will be trying another delayed recording of "STE". I had disabled power saving settings and screen saver. My setup includes an ext FW drive to which the files are recorded and the 3250 is "piggy-backed" to the FW drive. Any thoughts? Based on other posts, it seems that others are more successful at capturing video with a similar set-up and slower processor.


Just tried another Enterprise episode and got about 25 minutes of recording before it stopped. Picture was good. Said there was two errors. A Stargate Atlantis episode was all noise. The G4 1.5 ghz PB only has 512 mb RAM. Would an increase in RAM help out?

Well, I was ready to finally start the whole process outlined in this thread. I had wanted to end my Comcast for a while and had a bunch of shows recorded on my Scientific Atlanta 8300HD that I wanted to pull off. Finally, today the FIOS installation went down which would lead to me cancel my Comcast and give back my 8300HD.

So with my FIOS installed ad my comcast still alive, I installed the new FirewireSDK25 on my 15" 2.16ghz MacBook Pro C2D w/ 3GB RAM. I turned the mac off, turned the Scientific Atlanta box off, connected the firewire cable between the two, and started up my MacBook Pro.

I ran the AVCBrowser.app and it saw the Scientific Atlanta. I went to the DVR mode of my box and saw that all my recorded shows had been deleted. So.. guess I don't need to do anything now.

Anyways, my new box with FIOS is a Motorola QIP6146-2. I'll be revisiting this thread probably in a couple months once I start getting shows worth holding onto a recording of.

Just tried another Enterprise episode and got about 25 minutes of recording before it stopped. Picture was good. Said there was two errors. A Stargate Atlantis episode was all noise. The G4 1.5 ghz PB only has 512 mb RAM. Would an increase in RAM help out?

Another update: realized that the PB G4 500 had a GB of RAM so switched back to it. Instead of coping to the ext FW HDD, I tried coping to the internal drive. So far I have made 3 successful one-hr recordings. I apparently have some energy saving option turned on as recordings fail (over-runs) if the PB is left unattended. The successful recordings were completed while moving the cursor to keep the PB awake during each recording attempt. My only problem is there is only about 7 gb of space left on the int HD and can only get one copy before having to move it. I think that I will go back and try recording directly to the ext FW HD and "babying" the PB to see if that will work.

I had lunch last wk with several friends and one works for SA. We have discussed FW recording in the past and whether possible on our local cable company. I updated him on my, so far, limited success and he said to enjoy it while I can as the feature will probably be unavailable in the near future as the cable companies upgrade their hardware. Due to crowd noise, I was not able to hear the details of what the cable companies would be doing that would disable the feature. I plan to follow up the conversation when we next meet.

Has anyone else heard similar reports?

brett

I have a Sony Sat HD300 and AVX1 I would like to get rid of.

I thought it was federally mandated that cable boxes have firewire.

http://digital-lifestyles.info/2004/04/30/fcc-requires-firewire-in-set-top-boxes/
http://www.unmediated.org/archives/2004/04/fcc_requires_fi.php
http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-03-225A1.pdf (pg 17, sec 3)

That topic has come up for years in the high def forums, and what it comes down to is this: according to FCC regulations the cablecos are supposed to provide one model STB with a working firewire interface upon request. That doesn't mean every model STB or DVR they offer has to have an active firewire port. Even if you get one with active firewire, there have been countless instances reported of firmware or software updates breaking that functionality, of channels and programs being flagged improperly (copy never instead of copy once) or encrypted when they shouldn't be, etc. And it's not like there's a realistic expectation of a cable company actually helping you to record over firewire.

That topic has come up for years in the high def forums, and what it comes down to is this: according to FCC regulations the cablecos are supposed to provide one model STB with a working firewire interface upon request. That doesn't mean every model STB or DVR they offer has to have an active firewire port. Even if you get one with active firewire, there have been countless instances reported of firmware or software updates breaking that functionality, of channels and programs being flagged improperly (copy never instead of copy once) or encrypted when they shouldn't be, etc. And it's not like there's a realistic expectation of a cable company actually helping you to record over firewire.
The third link that Montressor listed explains the `one model with working FW' thing, see pages 12 and 13.
Between 2004.04.01 and 2005.06.30 it was true that the cable company must offer at least one model with a working FW port on request.
From 2005.07.01 onwards *all* models that the cable company obtains after that date must have a working FW port.

Welp, I tried it tonight. Seems to work pretty well. HBO is out, as I expected, so it's not really a viable solution for me, but it is interesting. I was particularly interested in the AVCBrowser application, which sets up live streaming directly to VLC ata UDP port. Seems that with a bit of hackery, it would be possible to transcode and serve this stream, allowing for remote access and control via a network. Not exacty sure what happens on a channel change - it almost looks like it's tearing down and rebuilding the connection on every channel change.

If nothing else, this seems a viable way to record the Daily Show and Colbert Report, as well as any Sci-Fi, History Channel or DIY shows I'd like to catch. There is an additional step required of converting the mpeg2 stream file to an mp4 via MPEG Streamclip, but I think it'll be possible to automate that with a bit of AppleScript and GUI Scripting.

Wish someone with deep FW-fu would whip up an app based on these that did the whole thing.

Hey Everyone. Is anyone out there capable of recording and then downloading programs on ESPN2HD? I was able to up until last week and there are 2 upcoming programs that I am dying to get. If anyone is capable, please contact me as I'd glady reimburse you greatly for your time and effort.
Cheers

If anyone is capable, please contact me as I'd gladly reimburse you greatly for your time and effort.

That kind of spam isn't encouraged around here...

Apologies as I didn't mean anything by it. Willing to offer other programs that I've been able to record or just trading of ideas on what's worked for me. Sorry again as I should have just asked how anyone went about recording ESPN2HD. Cheers and won't happen again.

I've been playing with this a bit further. I've found that the AVCBrowser app will fire up a copy of VLC if found in the App folder and displays any unprotected stream. It does this by connecting VLC to a UDP stream at port 41394. It is possible to transcode and rebroadcast this stream.

However, so far, I can' find a reliable way to initiate this process automatically. Versions of vlc other than the one in your app folder won't work. And the version in the app folder will only work after being launched by AVCBrowser.It seems that there's some application-specific setup going on. Can anyone shed some more light on this?

Regarding all the posts about firewire hard drive speeds, I haven't seen any performance problems with a variety of firewire drives ranging from 30 to 120 GB and 5400 to 7200 RPM. I've also had good results with internal ATA drives. The bottleneck should not be the drive there. Internal Powerbook drives may be the exception. I'll try to do some tests with my iBook tomorrow.

How is HD playback with a 5400 rpm ext drive? Looking to buy a 250 gb to off load the internal HD.

I have now successfully recorded 3 movies and a couple of episodes from various shows after switching to a 1.25 ghz eMac w/ an 80 gb HDD. I think that I may have identified part of my recording woes as the ext Iomega HDD. When I tried to copy the files to it from the eMac, I got a 1309 error. Same error occured w/ the PB but I thought it was due to less than 1 gb available on int HD causing memory problems. Small files will copy over successfully but large files produce the said error code. I did a search but could not find a reference to the 1309 code. 13xx falls under the HFS category on the sites that I checked so I assume it is a formatting problem. The same error occurs w/ both the FW cable and the USB 2.0 cable. It is a 60 gb drive about half full. Movies are about 15 gb in size and 1-hr episodes are about 4 gb. It did not take long to fill up the 80 gb HD on the eMac.

Brett

Hey everyone -

This thread was MAJORLY helpful in getting this whole process to work. I've been wanting some way to backup my DVR'd HD programs for some time now, other than conventional analog methods. So thanks a million for that. Here comes my question:

I'm currently setup with my SA 8300HD from Cablevision FireWired into my Intel Mini. Everything works just as expected with AVCVideoCap, I get my captured files error free almost everytime. Once I've got them captured, I fire up MPEG Streamclip (one of my favorite programs, btw) and open the stream. On almost all recordings, i see that the audio is AC3 3/2 so I'm assuming the 5.1 stream has been captured as well. My question is, is there a way using MPEG Streamclip to retain that 5.1 information instead of downmixing it to stereo?? I tried the Pass thru option in Streamclip, but this results in a silent file in QuickTime that lists as having "ms", Stereo, 48.000 KHz on the Inspector. I assume that these files are silent, but I have not tried hooking my computer up to a digital receiver yet, but I would think they'd be downmixed to stereo for analog if the 5.1 carried over.

Sorry if this didn't make complete sense, but it's late and I tried to word it the best way I could. ;-) Any help and advice you guys can offer would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks so much in advance.

bump it up!

Hey everyone -
On almost all recordings, i see that the audio is AC3 3/2 so I'm assuming the 5.1 stream has been captured as well. My question is, is there a way using MPEG Streamclip to retain that 5.1 information instead of downmixing it to stereo?? I tried the Pass thru option in Streamclip, but this results in a silent file in QuickTime that lists as having "ms", Stereo, 48.000 KHz on the Inspector. I assume that these files are silent, but I have not tried hooking my computer up to a digital receiver yet, but I would think they'd be downmixed to stereo for analog if the 5.1 carried over.


Yes, this means it is surround sound. And, Yes, you can reatain it, but it's a pain if you want to keep it in any format besides the native high def mpeg2 with muxed audio.

This is where the help file from MPEG Streamclip comes in handy. It is very good at explaining everything about the program, and I'll leave reading it up to you so as not to cut and paste 50 lines here.

If you use the command "Convert to mpeg", you save all surround sound without the hassel. You will need to play it with VLC or some similar program. Or, are you trying to make a quicktime movie file with some "motion jpeg A" or "mpeg4" format of the HD program and retain the surround sound in quicktime? (If so, this is possible with quicktime PRO, version 7 or later). If this is what you want, I can try to post some help, but don't want to get into it if you are talking something different. Again, it's a bit of a hassel. What is your destination file format?

Yes, I currently convert the 1080i MPEG into a 720p H.264 file to cut down on size a bit, and plus all of my displays are 720 anyway. I read somewhere else that QuickTime/Front Row won't play multi-channel audio yet, but I figured it would be good to retain this 5.1 track for future use. Currently I capture it with AVCVideoCap, get it into StreamClip, and covert it to the H.264 file. Although it takes forever, the end result is worth it. So please let me know if there's something I can do to get that 5.1 stream to transfer to the new file. I greatly appreciate the reply and any help you can provide me. Thanks in advance!

Yes, I currently convert the 1080i MPEG into a 720p H.264 file to cut down on size a bit, and plus all of my displays are 720 anyway. I read somewhere else that QuickTime/Front Row won't play multi-channel audio yet, but I figured it would be good to retain this 5.1 track for future use. Currently I capture it with AVCVideoCap, get it into StreamClip, and covert it to the H.264 file. Although it takes forever, the end result is worth it. So please let me know if there's something I can do to get that 5.1 stream to transfer to the new file. I greatly appreciate the reply and any help you can provide me. Thanks in advance!

Here we go. I think I got everything.

you need quick time pro with version 7 or later for this.

Open the file in MpegStreamclip and edit it the way you want. Use "File => Convert to MPEG" and save so you don't lose your edits.
Open the new file and go down to the Audio Mode pop up box and chose "LS/RS ch" and "File=> Demux to AIFF". Give it a creative name and call it LR surround audio. Then open the new aiff file in QT pro. Press command J. Click on the soundtrack and go to audio settings. In the "channel assignment" box in the bottom right, specify the correct channels. In this case "left surround" and "right surround". Repeat this procedure for "L/R channel", "center channel", and "LFE channel". So you now have 4 quicktime audio aiff files. Then open each file combine all files into one quicktime file. (make sure you "Edit=>add to movie" each file to the new movie...not paste). Do not include your h264 video here. Then, "File=>Export...Movie to quicktime move...options...Sound...settings....Format as AAC and channels as 5.1....OK...OK....Save. This will make a full quicktime file with AAC encoded audio in full 5.1 surround sound. Then take this audio and combine with the h264 video file and "File=> saveas self contained quicktime movie.

I've been struggling with this off/on for a month. I'm using a MAC, firewireSDK 25 (AVC videoCap, VLC for playback.
It records apparently fine but I can't see playback by any vehicle. It's always black. If I click "treat as a pipe rather than file", I get 'something'. I get audio and either a black center screen with side bars of the program I recorded like cbs. OR - It starts playback but gives me one still image of the start then that's it - then just audio.

It's like it can't handle/play movement? Any ideas?

I there any way the opening post could be edited to where we are 3 years later? It's extremely outdated.

I there any way the opening post could be edited to where we are 3 years later? It's extremely outdated.

Agreed. Several of the links are badly outdated and result in 404s. As we're on the verge of Leopard, perhaps it's time to update the OP with Tiger instructions :/

Man, am I ever lost. I've read through every page of this thread, but I'm stumped. Here are my specs:

8300HD - Brighthouse, Orlando
Mac Mini, 2.0ghz C2D, 1 GB RAM

I'm trying to pull a show I've had sitting on my DVR for a year now. I can record it without errors showing up on AVBrowser, but when playing it back on both the mac and PC, I am getting artifacts and tearing every few minutes. The signal is 1080i (CBS). Anyone have any suggestions?

I bought the mac specifically for this task (and then to use in the bedroom as a media center), so it's really important to me to get this solved. Could it be that the mac mini's drive isn't fast enough? I have a usb drive I could use with a larger buffer. (no firewire drive since I'm using the only firewire port already)

:confused:

It's been several years since I last tried recording from my cable co's firewire port to my mac. Nearly every piece of equipment I own has been upgraded in that time. Here's what I know so far:

Comcast SA 8300HD (DVR)
PowerBook G4 1.67GHz
FireWire SDK v25

I connect the PB to the STB. I launch AVCVideoCap and it sees the STB. I start to record one of my digital channels. The "EMI" field at the bottom of the window reads "Copy Freely".

A file with extension 'm2t' definitely gets captured, however, trying to open it with MPEG Streamclip gives the error: "file open error: can't find video or audio tracks".

Opening it with VLC fails too....

I know recording works because if I playback a pre-recorded program from the DVR channel and capture that, it has worked...

Any suggestions?
Brad

Can you stream the output to VLC instead of the capture to see if that works? I have heard of others having trouble with the live capture when the pre-recorded capture is working fine.

Chris

Can you stream the output to VLC instead of the capture to see if that works? I have heard of others having trouble with the live capture when the pre-recorded capture is working fine.
Chris
Sorry, I searched back in this thread a little bit, but wasn't able to find any references to streaming to VLC--only to using VLC to clean up balky transport streams (which, BTW, didn't work on my problematic captures)...

Can you give me a some more specific pointers?

Thanks!
Brad

A file with extension 'm2t' definitely gets captured, however, trying to open it with MPEG Streamclip gives the error: "file open error: can't find video or audio tracks".

Brad, Did you check the file size? I have had several recording attempts where the file was created but nothing recorded (i.e. 0 kb file size). I am using an eMac 1.25 ghz and a SA 3250. I probably have a 90% success rate at recordings. The two errors that I get are: 1) video was not captured or 2) video was captured but the picture is totally scrambled. I have not figured out why the video capture fails sometimes. It seems that if I quit the app btw recordings, it solves the no capture program. No clue to the scrambled picture either as the channels are all copy freely. I just check to make sure that I got a clean capture before archiving as HD recordings take up alot of space (Wyatt Earp 25 gb!!!!)

Brett
G4 eMac 1.25 ghz, 1 gb RAM
250 gb USB 2.0 Ext HD (already full and scrambling to get another!)
SA 3250 HD with Knology

File size is definitely bigger than 0KB... An hour of TV has been ending up in the 4-5GB range. HD channels are showing around 120MB/min...

Still stumped...
brad

Sorry, I searched back in this thread a little bit, but wasn't able to find any references to streaming to VLC--only to using VLC to clean up balky transport streams (which, BTW, didn't work on my problematic captures)...

Can you give me a some more specific pointers?

Thanks!
Brad

With VLC, try File, Open Capture Device. The AVC tuner device should be listed. That will open a window with the current output of the cable box. So you can watch TV on that computer. You can also have VLC stream to the network to another PC. But as far as I know, VLC won't capture, just display and stream to another VLC client. But at least that would verify your hardware is connected and outputing video/audio through the firewire.

Chris

No 'Open Capture Device' options listed in any of the VLC menus that I can find... Using the latest-- 0.8.6c....

brad

Originally Posted by bspachman

A file with extension 'm2t' definitely gets captured, however, trying to open it with MPEG Streamclip gives the error: "file open error: can't find video or audio tracks".

Same happened to me. You can't record live your movies because they are encrypted. If you try this you will have this error message "file open error: can't find video or audio tracks", even if this file weights 15gb for a 2 hour movie.
You have to record your shows on your DVR and then capture them with you mac.
It seems that some of my recordings remains encrypted on the hdd of my dvr. So, when I capture them, I still have the same error message. For a reason that I don't know, some records remains encrypted and some other don't.
In the next days, I will try to re-record some movies to see what gonna happen. For now, 50% of the movies captured remains encrypted.
Excuse my bad English writing.

No 'Open Capture Device' options listed in any of the VLC menus that I can find... Using the latest-- 0.8.6c....

brad

I also have 0.8.6c, and it's in the File Menu. CTRL-A is the hotkey. Is it in your File menu?

Chris

Same happened to me. You can't record live your movies because they are encrypted. If you try this you will have this error message "file open error: can't find video or audio tracks", even if this file weights 15gb for a 2 hour movie.


Your english is better than some of the native speakers I work with... :)

I was wondering if I'm suffering from encryption problems. Am I being misled by the EMI indicator at the bottom of the capture window reading "Copy Freely"?

I also have 0.8.6c, and it's in the File Menu. CTRL-A is the hotkey. Is it in your File menu?
Chris,

Hmmm...are we talking about the Macintosh version of VLC...?

Best,
Brad

Your english is better than some of the native speakers I work with... :)

I was wondering if I'm suffering from encryption problems. Am I being misled by the EMI indicator at the bottom of the capture window reading "Copy Freely"?


Chris,

Hmmm...are we talking about the Macintosh version of VLC...?

Best,
Brad

Oops. Sorry, I use a PC Laptop to connect up to the cable box since it is close. I am surprised that that feature isn't in the Mac version of VLC. It just lets you view the firewire video/audio stream and pipe it to other computers on the network.

Chris

I have Comcast as a service provider in my area (CA). I would like to know which is the best STB to ask from them. Is there a way to get a Core Duo MacMini to hook into the STB's FW400 interface and schedule recordings from the STB, if not, how would I go about doing that? And if there is anything else I should know, please do inform me!!!

PS1: I'm trying to record HDTV content for permanent storage and for future playback on the TV and my iMac. Is there a STB that I can request that will ignore 5C flags so that I can record unrestricted, or is there a workaround for that?
PS2: If I am going to be restricted in HDTV content recordability, can I hook in the Cable to the Cable Box then S-Video out to an EyeTV 250 to the MacMini and record the video closer to DVD quality?

I have Comcast in Eugene, Oregon with a Motorola DCT-3412. Mine has two Firewire links which transfer whatever is displaying on the screen. Some channels are Copy Freely but others are Copy Once and Copy Never. Only the Copy Freely channels work for transfer to the Mac. One of the Copy Once channels here is the local ABC affiliate which should be Copy Freely. I haven't tried to convince Comcast to change this. I have no experience trying to automate transfers from the Motorola box.

There is nothing that ignores the 5C flags as that would be unlawful. A JVC DVHS recorder, however, will play back Copy Once recordings. Those recorders use the Firewire link from the cable box for transfers.

You can record any channel via the S-Video output but the HD channels will be letterboxed (not anamorphic) 4:3 standard definition. There is no 16:9 output from a Motorola box except at 720P or 1080I and S-video is 480I.

On the other hand, an EyeTV Hybrid or 250+ can capture the OTA HD channels to the Mac much more conveniently than transferring from the DCT-3412. I bought one of those $30 triangular Philips indoor HDTV antennas and I was able to tune all the OTA HD channels even though I live in a steep hilly area. There's less hassle in programming and playing back the EyeTV recordings on the Mac. Also, I've used Toast to encode anamorphic 16:9 video DVD archives of some HD programs.

Basically you need to lower your expectations about what HDTV programs you can record for archival purposes. What you want to have isn't what the industry wants you to have.

Basically you need to lower your expectations about what HDTV programs you can record for archival purposes. What you want to have isn't what the industry wants you to have.


I have been extremely pleased with the programs provided on HDNet, HDNet Movies, and UniversalHD but not pleased with how much disk space that I am using up for the recordings. Check out the HDNet channels if your cable company carries them.

Brett

Basically you need to lower your expectations about what HDTV programs you can record for archival purposes. What you want to have isn't what the industry wants you to have.

And at this point one either looks to iTMS for the content, torrents, straight out disc purchase or just commit it to memory and let the rose colored glasses of time improve the show as you age.

Can someone help me out setting up a network share? I added a new drive to my PowerMac G4 and I'm storing all my DVR transfers there. I can't seem to share it out. When I try to access it from any of my PC's, I can see the profiles that are shared, but not that drive. Is there any way to share a drive or just a folder in OSX?

Can someone help me out setting up a network share? I added a new drive to my PowerMac G4 and I'm storing all my DVR transfers there. I can't seem to share it out. When I try to access it from any of my PC's, I can see the profiles that are shared, but not that drive. Is there any way to share a drive or just a folder in OSX?

Did you turn on read/write permissions for other users in the Get Info window? Also you may need to turn on Windows File Sharing in the Share preferences since you are trying to access from a PC.

Brett

Has anyone tried compressing the m2t files or other video files to save disk space? If they can be compressed will it cause a loss in video quality? Many yrs ago when I would compress my HD I noticed that there was neglible compression of jpeg files.

Brett

Has anyone tried compressing the m2t files or other video files to save disk space? If they can be compressed will it cause a loss in video quality? Many yrs ago when I would compress my HD I noticed that there was neglible compression of jpeg files.

Brett

Yeah, I do.

I record via Firewire with my Mac Mini, then move the .m2t file over to my Windows box. I like using Nero Recode,usually I choose to encode H.264/AVC. It looks great, but takes forever to encode. Plus there's the pain in the ass of dealing with the whole telecine thing.

Frequently I record a show, then wind up downloading an H.264/AVC version off the net because it's quicker then going through everything. I wind up tossing out my .mt2 files often.
Sometimes you gotta bite the bullet, and it can be a lot of work.

Yeah, I do.

I record via Firewire with my Mac Mini, then move the .m2t file over to my Windows box. I like using Nero Recode,usually I choose to encode H.264/AVC. It looks great, but takes forever to encode. Plus there's the pain in the ass of dealing with the whole telecine thing.

Frequently I record a show, then wind up downloading an H.264/AVC version off the net because it's quicker then going through everything. I wind up tossing out my .mt2 files often.
Sometimes you gotta bite the bullet, and it can be a lot of work.Check out this thread for conversions using HandbrakeCLI, which will work on your Mac:

http://handbrake.m0k.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3043

Can someone help me out setting up a network share? I added a new drive to my PowerMac G4 and I'm storing all my DVR transfers there. I can't seem to share it out. When I try to access it from any of my PC's, I can see the profiles that are shared, but not that drive. Is there any way to share a drive or just a folder in OSX?

You don't say which version of OSX you are running... if it's 10.5 (Leopard), then the following may be of some help:

"Share and share alike. Like a scent on a breeze that reminds us of older days, File Sharing in Leopard brings back a feature missing since Mac OS 9: folders that can be shared as network volumes. While third-party software could add back this behavior in Tiger, it’s not the same as having it built in. Sharing folders lets you choose which projects or parts of a hard drive to expose to others. This limits risk and makes file sharing simpler, too.

Leopard provides a neat interface (in the Sharing preference pane, under the File Sharing service) to choose which folders or volumes to share, and to set which users may access and modify files. But it can be even simpler. In the Finder, select any folder or volume, choose Get Info, and check the Shared Folder box to share that item; it’s automatically added to the Shared Folders list in File Sharing."

In earlier versions of OSX, I used a little program called SharePoints to help with the permissions and setup issues of sharing folders...

brad

Check out this thread for conversions using HandbrakeCLI, which will work on your Mac:

http://handbrake.m0k.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3043

Yeah, Handbrake is nice, but there are two dealbreakers for me: My mini is a G4 1.25 GHz (hope to upgrade in a few months) so AVC encoding HD material would take multiple days. My windows box is AMD 64 Dual Core 4800+

The other dealbreaker, probably the biggest pain in the ass of the whole procedure: the conversion from 60FPS to 24FPS. A good example is 'Lost'. It's filmed at 24FPS or 23.97 to be exact. It uses 3:2 pulldown to duplicate frames, sort of. Actually it has a totally random pattern to it's duplicate frames. To get it down to just 24FPS, no dupes so it's smooth as butter, I had to use AVSynth to remove the dups, and frameserve it Nero.

You don't say which version of OSX you are running... if it's 10.5 (Leopard), then the following may be of some help:

"Share and share alike. Like a scent on a breeze that reminds us of older days, File Sharing in Leopard brings back a feature missing since Mac OS 9: folders that can be shared as network volumes. While third-party software could add back this behavior in Tiger, it’s not the same as having it built in. Sharing folders lets you choose which projects or parts of a hard drive to expose to others. This limits risk and makes file sharing simpler, too.

Leopard provides a neat interface (in the Sharing preference pane, under the File Sharing service) to choose which folders or volumes to share, and to set which users may access and modify files. But it can be even simpler. In the Finder, select any folder or volume, choose Get Info, and check the Shared Folder box to share that item; it’s automatically added to the Shared Folders list in File Sharing."

In earlier versions of OSX, I used a little program called SharePoints to help with the permissions and setup issues of sharing folders...

brad

Thanks brad. I found Sharepoints doing some googling last night and it works like a charm on 10.4.

Has anyone tried compressing the m2t files or other video files to save disk space?

Using Stuffit 10.0 on a G4 1.5 ghz PB, it takes about 2 hrs to get a 5%compression of a 6 gb m2t file. Looks like my time will be better spent looking for a bigger HD.

Brett

Using Stuffit 10.0 on a G4 1.5 ghz PB, it takes about 2 hrs to get a 5%compression of a 6 gb m2t file. Looks like my time will be better spent looking for a bigger HD.

Brett

Just use Handbrake and convert the files to Xvid. Typical movie gets crunched down to 700MB to 900MB, I'm not sure how long it takes on 1.5Ghz mac.

Has anyone tried compressing the m2t files or other video files to save disk space? If they can be compressed will it cause a loss in video quality? Many yrs ago when I would compress my HD I noticed that there was neglible compression of jpeg files.

Brett


I do.

Example of what I do:

LOST in HD.

Take 720p m2t file, use mpegstream clip -> export to mpeg with mp2 audio.

load mpg into mpegstream clip, edit out commercials -> export to mpeg with mp2 audio

load file into ffmpegx, set codec to xvid(avi contaianer, I usually set the bitrate to around 6000), autocrop(sometimes there is an errant line of green or black), hit encode, set back and wait for it to be done.

when I work with 1080i material I have to first convert the mt2 to mpeg, then convert the 1080i mpeg to a 720p mpeg, then do the above. For some reason if I try to cut out the commercials on the 1080i file each cut throws off the audio sync by about a second.


there probably is a better way to do it, but this works for me, takes alot of time though.

I gave up trying to compress the files...I just buy more drives.

I'm up to 7.5 TB. I have over 550 movies and multiple TV series saved...I take up more time than I would like just stripping out commercials...I would never be able to compress as well.

seldenpat,

nowhere near your largess but just got a macbook pro 2.4g notebook with those firewire ports.

since i have a time warner cable 8300HD DVR box with firewire ports, what software do you use to capture your primetime shows and un-encrypted movies?

thanks!

paul




I gave up trying to compress the files...I just buy more drives.

I'm up to 7.5 TB. I have over 550 movies and multiple TV series saved...I take up more time than I would like just stripping out commercials...I would never be able to compress as well.

seldenpat,

nowhere near your largess but just got a macbook pro 2.4g notebook with those firewire ports.

since i have a time warner cable 8300HD DVR box with firewire ports, what software do you use to capture your primetime shows and un-encrypted movies?

thanks!

paul

I use VirtualDVHS from SDK 21. I record to one drive that I designate as "removable". My mac is not too powerful, so its only purpose is to capture and playback the transport streams through firewire. When I have the .m2t file that I want I remove the drive and attach it to a much faster PC running MacDrive so it can recognize the mac formatted drive. I then use HDTV2MPEG to strip out commercials, or trim the fat. Once the file is cleaned up, I move the drive back and copy the file to the stationary drive array.

The best part about the 8300HD for me from Cablevision is that I can capture stuff live, or recorded. Cablevision has set all flags to copy freely.

Hope this helps,
Patrick

patrick,
that helps tremendously!
once i get leopard, i'll dedicate this notebook for that purpose and perhaps start archiving the d-vhs tapes i made since 1999. i just about have every hd 1080i movie HBO-HD broadcast under 8vsb (un-encrypted)

i tried using a dell pc running VLC capture as well as capdvhs, but always suffered from occasional digital blocking and delays.
i am hoping it's better with the MACBOOK pro.
then again, it may be time warner and it's proprietary coding with the 8300hd DVR and the 3100hd in the past.

we'll see in a few weeks if everything works.

i'll follow up then.

thanks again patrick!

paul







I use VirtualDVHS from SDK 21. I record to one drive that I designate as "removable". My mac is not too powerful, so its only purpose is to capture and playback the transport streams through firewire. When I have the .m2t file that I want I remove the drive and attach it to a much faster PC running MacDrive so it can recognize the mac formatted drive. I then use HDTV2MPEG to strip out commercials, or trim the fat. Once the file is cleaned up, I move the drive back and copy the file to the stationary drive array.

The best part about the 8300HD for me from Cablevision is that I can capture stuff live, or recorded. Cablevision has set all flags to copy freely.

Hope this helps,
Patrick

Hi Everyone, looking for some help from the experts.

A few months ago I came a cross a thread on this forum on using a Mac and the firewire SDK to record from the SA8300HD. I gave this a try and I was able to record through the firewire to the Mac of a recorded movie as a test, it was a 1080i recording and it worked with no issue, very clean. The mac was to slow to play it smoothly but it played well on my beefier PC. That was the only test I did. I had the same movie on my PVR so I tried it again just last week but now the recording has what looks to be blocky glitch noise for video and sound. I followed the same procedure from the same source file but it's not working. I also have a SA3250HD, from there I can record live TV without issue in standard but anything HD has the same glitchy blocky stuff. The only difference on my Mac is that before when it worked it was on Mac OS 10.4.9 and FirewireSDK22, I've since updated to 10.4.10 and hasn't worked since. I tried 10.4.10 with SDK22 and SDK25, also 10.4.11 with SDK25 but same problems. Could it be the upgrage from 10.4.9 that is causing these problems? or more likely that the provider changed something?

I am using 10.4.10 and SDK25 on a G4 computer w/ 95% success rate. The failures are mostly from the computer sometimes freezing up but every once in awhile I will get a recording of garbily-gook. I would think that the upgrade is not the source of the problems. I have found that I can later re-record a glitchy program with no problems. So far, I have not found any rhyme or reason as to why some captures fail. Are you saving to an ext FW drive? I seem to have more freeze ups when saving to an ext FW drive. I currently save to the internal HD, attach ext FW HD, and copy over. I had high success rate using an eMac, 3250HD, and an USB 2.0 ext HD. Another thought, are the HD channels flagged as "copy freely".

Anyone doing successful recordings with Leopard 10.5.1 and SDK 25?

If so, can you post a quick how to?

I'm using AVCVideoCap in SDK25 and 10.5.1 on my MacBook Pro with no problems. The steps are to select the device, click the Capture From Device button and do what the windows ask. The EMI must state Copy Freely.

Hi,
I read the howto and didn't see anything about more 'advanced' software that can handle scheduling, TV listings, etc.. Is there any software that hooks into the Virtual DVHS that can handle this?

I have no HD STB yet, but I'd consider getting one if I could easily integrate it into a Mac mini. I'm currently just using my set's internal QAM tuner on my Comcast cable line directly. I would want to be able to timeshift HD as well as tune into channels I'm subscribed to.

TIA!

I'm using AVCVideoCap in SDK25 and 10.5.1 on my MacBook Pro with no problems. The steps are to select the device, click the Capture From Device button and do what the windows ask. The EMI must state Copy Freely.


Thanks, that worked perfectly.

I think I was trying to Capture Copy Once flagged program, that's why I was having trouble.

Now, converting that file to something that is more flexible.. I am using Mpeg-Streamclip to go to WMV-HD 5.1. Looks like its going to take 3-4 days to complete on a Mac Mini C2D 1.83 with 2.5 gb ram.. DAMN! Thats a long time. Only way I can get a usable file that I can compress a little and still retain 5.1 audio. Too bad Front Row won't play .m2t files.

Thanks, that worked perfectly.

I think I was trying to Capture Copy Once flagged program, that's why I was having trouble.

Now, converting that file to something that is more flexible.. I am using Mpeg-Streamclip to go to WMV-HD 5.1. Looks like its going to take 3-4 days to complete on a Mac Mini C2D 1.83 with 2.5 gb ram.. DAMN! Thats a long time. Only way I can get a usable file that I can compress a little and still retain 5.1 audio. Too bad Front Row won't play .m2t files.

I choose Convert to MPEG in MPEG Streamclip. This goes quickly (about as fast as the hard drive can write the file) and retains the source 5.1 audio when present. This plays in VLC and I also use it in Toast for re-encoding to 16:9 anamorphic video DVD with 5.1 audio. I don't use Front Row.

hi guys
been browsing for a while, finally found a need to actually post a question :)

i have time warner cable
powerbook/iMac
scientific atlanta 3250hd w/firewire ports
virtual program listed in post 1

but i can't get anything to capture
i don't think the ports are activated because in the virtual program it says 0 connections
i called twc and they told me to call sa
sa told me to call twc :/
most people at twc do not know anything about a law saying the port needs to be active or even what the port is

does anyone have a tip on how to tell if the port is active without getting a new box (since no one at twc seems to really know anything, going to get new boxes and hoping to get lucky seems like a bad idea)

thanks a lot

i heard back from time warner
they told me "i need a device with digital transmission content pertection"
if i have a device thats dtcp compliant then they will look further into supplying me with a box that firewire activated

i heard back from time warner
they told me "i need a device with digital transmission content pertection"
if i have a device thats dtcp compliant then they will look further into supplying me with a box that firewire activated

Tell them to f*** themselves and give you a box with firewire support. The law doesn't state that you have to have a DTCP device before they have to give you a firewire enabled box. Your local stations will be flagged as 'Copy Freely' and thus can be copied with a computer. Not that it's any of their business whether you have a DTCP device or not.

Hello

I have been trying to setup my new Mac mini with my TWC 8300HD using AVCBrowser in Firewire SDK25. When I open the AVCBrowser, it recognizes by cable box as "Attached", the Subunits are "Panel, Tuner" and the Stream Format is Other/Uknown. I can go into the control panel and open the device, i then set a channel number (i have pretty much tried all my channels now, SD, HD, digital, etc.) and when I start the VLC controller to view the channels, it opens but all that ever pops up in the viewer is "udp://41394" no video or audio ever opens. I've also tried capturing video using Irecord and the AVCVideocap and although it appears to be recording something into a m2t file, when i try and view the file using VirtualDVHS nothing ever happens, as though the file is empty (even though it is creating large files on my disk).

Im probably overlooking something pretty basic here (I have also called Time Warner to make sure my ports are enabled on the 8300HD and they have assured me they are....i dont get any errors in the AV/C control panel although after "Device Opened Successfully" it usually says "Bus-reset detected!" before i use the set new channel to browse the viewer).

Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
-Danny

Sounds like AVCvideocap is working fine. Try playing the m2t files back with video lan client (VLC). It's free and can be used to convert the m2t files to mpg or ts files.

thanks,

I have tried VLC but it still doesnt do anything, it just says "udp://41394". Any other thoughts?

-danny

I've never seen "udp://41394". Sorry.

Hello

I have been trying to setup my new Mac mini with my TWC 8300HD using AVCBrowser in Firewire SDK25. When I open the AVCBrowser, it recognizes by cable box as "Attached", the Subunits are "Panel, Tuner" and the Stream Format is Other/Uknown. I can go into the control panel and open the device, i then set a channel number (i have pretty much tried all my channels now, SD, HD, digital, etc.) and when I start the VLC controller to view the channels, it opens but all that ever pops up in the viewer is "udp://41394" no video or audio ever opens. I've also tried capturing video using Irecord and the AVCVideocap and although it appears to be recording something into a m2t file, when i try and view the file using VirtualDVHS nothing ever happens, as though the file is empty (even though it is creating large files on my disk).

Im probably overlooking something pretty basic here (I have also called Time Warner to make sure my ports are enabled on the 8300HD and they have assured me they are....i dont get any errors in the AV/C control panel although after "Device Opened Successfully" it usually says "Bus-reset detected!" before i use the set new channel to browse the viewer).

Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
-Danny

Danny,

Are your programs flagged as "copy freely"? You will get empty files if you are trying to capture programs that are flagged otherwise. I could never get the Browser to work but have 95% success with AVCVideoCap. I replay it thru VLC. My latest capture was a digital mosaic even tho the set-up captured the last 3 events successfully. Are you piggy-backing an ext FW drive w/ the 8300? Piggy-backing FW components is not supposed to be a problem, but I seem to have more success when I have the SA 3250 HD connected by itself and either capturing to the int HD or an ext USB 2.0 HD. I am also using a G4 500 mhz PB for most of my captures and that may be part of my problem. I was getting a 99% success rate with a 1.25 ghz eMac and an USB 2.0 ext HD but my wife got tired of seeing a big honking eMac distrupting the decorum of the room.

Brett

I have the exact same problem as dmcyril. I've spent many hours trying to solve this issue without success. I have a SA 4250HD set top box connected via firewire to a new iMac. There is nothing (e.g., ext. drive) "chained" to the firewire port.

I know the iMac sees the STB because it is shown in AVC Browser and I can open or close the device (STB) and change channels and each of these actions is reflected in the log.

The problem is that VLC never shows video, only udp://:@41394. I'm really trying to view live TV rather than record anything, but I have not been able to view recorded .ts files either. Again, same as dmcyril.

I've also tried other viewers such as Mplayer. Also, I believe that the STB output should be freely available/copy freely programming as I have tried many different stations including the local big 3 network stations.

Any help is much appreciated!

I record the file to my Mac's hard drive using AVCVideocap or DVHSCap. Then I open VLC and go to File:Open File. Then I use the Browse button to find the M2T file and then I open it by clicking on Okay. I've never seen a UDP anything. That's good, because I don't know what it means.

You can set your computer to open any .m2t file in VLC when you double-click it.

Select any .m2t file in the Finder and do a "Get Info" (either from the "File" menu or with Commmand-I). Down the window look for the "Open with" pulldown, and select "Other...". In the dialog that follows change the "Recommended Applications" pulldown to "All Applications" and select VLC (ignore the warning about it not being known whether VLC can open an .m2t file as we all know it can). Then hit the "Change All" button, again ignoring the warning.

Now the file suffix ".m2t" has been permanently linked to VLC in your "Launch Services" database and will open all such files accordingly.

I'm just getting started with my new Mini linked by FW to my new Comcast DCH-3416 HD box and am amazed at how simple capturing live video and setting up a timed recording with AVCVideoCap is, and the playback quality is fantastic, even streamed through the wireless LAN to a laptop upstairs. A totally unexpected bonus.

I have no reason to watch live TV streamed through the FW port (the mini and Comcast box are both connected to the same HDTV set) but will play with VLC a bit to see if I can help Terry78 and dmcyril with their issues and better acquaint myself with the way the systems work. Check back in a day or two for more.

i heard back from time warner
they told me "i need a device with digital transmission content pertection"
if i have a device thats dtcp compliant then they will look further into supplying me with a box that firewire activated

They are required by law to give you a cable box with a firewire port, they don't get the option of looking into it. They have to give you one upon request.

Straight from the FCC mandate on this subject:
As a means of ensuring the connectivity of these devices, the proposed rules would obligate all cable operators, effective December 31, 2003, to replace or upgrade subscriber-leased high definition set-top boxes upon subscriber request to ensure that such boxes have “functional” 1394 interfaces. For these purposes, a “functional” 1394 means a 1394 interface with appropriate software support. Starting July 1, 2005, all high definition set-top boxes acquired by cable operators for distribution to subscribers would need to include a 1394 interface and either a Digital Visual Interface (“DVI”) or High Definition Multimedia Interface (“HDMI”).

They are insisting that the broadcast flag be respected before they hand it over to you, which is by no means a requirement for them to give you a cable box they are required by law to supply you with upon request. They have no option. The broadcast flag rule was shot down by the courts and is in no way currently law in the United States at this time.

Just bought a G4 to use to record via Firewire due to major issues with Windows recording and Scientific Atlanta boxes. The box half works in Windows using the normal drivers, but all recordings are as much garbage as actual picture (as is streaming to VLC). This seems to be a common issue based on posts in the Windows thread, but some have mentioned that recording in OS X works even when Windows doesn't.

I have installed the firewire SDK from Apple. I have the box hooked up and FWBusyBus shows that something is connected. However, if I check AVCBrowser, nothing shows up. VirtualDVHS opens, but doesn't seem to connect to anything and just records 0 byte files. Anyone have any thoughts on how to get this to actually detect the box and allow me to record? I have have tried with the box set to multiple different channels, both copy once and copy freely, and it doesn't seem to make any difference. Firewire is obviously enabled on the box because the Windows drivers detect both the tuner and the panel.

Setup:
Dual G4 533
OS X 10.4.11
Firewire SDK 26 (also tried 20)
Scientific Atlanta 4240HDC with Cox Cable HD service

I have installed the firewire SDK from Apple. I have the box hooked up and FWBusyBus shows that something is connected. However, if I check AVCBrowser, nothing shows up. VirtualDVHS opens, but doesn't seem to connect to anything and just records 0 byte files. Anyone have any thoughts on how to get this to actually detect the box and allow me to record? I have have tried with the box set to multiple different channels, both copy once and copy freely, and it doesn't seem to make any difference. Firewire is obviously enabled on the box because the Windows drivers detect both the tuner and the panel.

Try the AVCVideoCap. I could not get AVCBrowser to work but I have a 95% success rate w/ AVC VC. sometimes I get a garbled capture. I also have problems with the G4 500 PB when I have an ext HD daisy-chained to the SA 3250 during a video capture. Seems to freeze up the PB. After I have d/l'ed files to the ext HD, I have been disconnecting the SA 3250 and then rebooting the PB. I have not gone back to see if I can get the AVCBrowser to work.

Brett

AVCVideoCap doesn't show any devices. I have also tried rebooting the box and that makes no difference.

I'm having the same problem with the SA 8300HD and VLC. get udp//:@411394. I use the 4250HD and it works great. Strange thing is on the 8300HD all my firewire diagnostics say "unavailable". So I called Cablevision and one guy told me they are disabled by cablevision. Next guys swears they aren't. So they are coming in 2 days to look at it and I'd like to get some input on where the issue lies, because I know the tech won't have a clue what I'm talking about. I'm thinking they are disabled but people do seem to have alot of trouble with this box. The device opens in AVC Browser, just can't get anything out of it.

This isn't really an answer, just another instance of issues encountered in trying to get similar devices to work. I originally posted it to MacChat before I saw this thread, where it belongs. Sorry for the duplication.

I've installed the Firewire SDK25, connected via Firewire 400 to my TW SA8300HDC DVR/STB and tried to record to my Mac. It appeared to record with AVCVideocap and in fact there are .m2t files on the Mac, but when I try to view them with either VLC or VirtualDVHS nothing appears. I recorded, or attempted to record, both local programming, which should and did have the copy flags set to 'copy freely', and HD signals and signals from the DVR's recorded items, which had the flags set to 'copy once'.

I've seen several old posts here and elsewhere (macrumors.com, etc.) about the process, and tried to follow the setup procedures instructions at macosxhints.com/article.p...599&query=HDTV to the letter but can't seem to get it to work. Some of these seem to be a couple of years old and I can't be sure if they're still valid.

I've also contacted the local city of Cincinnati cable service co-ordinator, who contacted an administrative tech at TW and he tells me that the firewire ports on the 8300HDC are enabled as required by FCC regs.

At this point I'm a bit stumped and would appreciate any help or links that anyone can suggest.

Thanks.

Can you upload a portion of a non-playable "Copy Freely" recording you've made? Just put it on a server somewhere, and post a link.

This isn't really an answer, just another instance of issues encountered in trying to get similar devices to work. I originally posted it to MacChat before I saw this thread, where it belongs. Sorry for the duplication.

I've installed the Firewire SDK25, connected via Firewire 400 to my TW SA8300HDC DVR/STB and tried to record to my Mac. It appeared to record with AVCVideocap and in fact there are .m2t files on the Mac, but when I try to view them with either VLC or VirtualDVHS nothing appears. I recorded, or attempted to record, both local programming, which should and did have the copy flags set to 'copy freely', and HD signals and signals from the DVR's recorded items, which had the flags set to 'copy once'.

I've seen several old posts here and elsewhere (macrumors.com, etc.) about the process, and tried to follow the setup procedures instructions at macosxhints.com/article.p...599&query=HDTV to the letter but can't seem to get it to work. Some of these seem to be a couple of years old and I can't be sure if they're still valid.

I've also contacted the local city of Cincinnati cable service co-ordinator, who contacted an administrative tech at TW and he tells me that the firewire ports on the 8300HDC are enabled as required by FCC regs.

At this point I'm a bit stumped and would appreciate any help or links that anyone can suggest.

Thanks.

Do you have a Windows box you can plug that 8300 in to? Whenever I have problems playing transfered files on my Mac, I fire up TSReader Lite (free to try) on my Windows box and I can see everything about the file. I'm not aware of a Mac product that does this.

Does the forum have a server I can post the m2t file to? Otherwise I have no other server posting rights.

I have XP on the Mac Pro through boot camp. Does that count as a Win box? I'll download TSReader Lite and copy the m2t file to the Win side and try it there. Thanks.

hi will be getting a 3250 from tw to record hd on my imac,can someone answer if you record on channels like hdnet or tnthd discoveryhd,and i know you cant record on hbo or any of the movie channels

i have the 8300 hd box with time warner,does anybody have the firewire activated on it,in central ny they are telling me the only way i can get the firewire is on the 3250 box,i have a 24in imac and want to record hd on it,but does tw have to activate the firewire on the 8300 for me,because i want to keep the pvr function on the 8300hd and the 3250 doesn't have that

hi will be getting a 3250 from tw to record hd on my imac,can someone answer if you record on channels like hdnet or tnthd discoveryhd,and i know you cant record on hbo or any of the movie channels

With the 3250 and Knology, I have been recording HDNet, HDNet Movies, and UniversalHD. On a rare occasion the video capture is garbly-gook but most times I get a good recording. The HDNet channels are great. Commercial free recordings. I think other posters have been recording with the 8300.

Brett

like many here, i am a time warner cable customer in nyc using 8300hd dvr and have a few external hard drives full of hd 1080i and hd 720p material. material that even today does not have any blu-ray of hd-dvd availability.

i have for years (since 2004) been trying to find a computer solution to record hd material from cable, since the good people at time warner stopped my d-vhs decks from working!


anyway, pc with windows simply does not work with vlc, capdvhs or anything else i've tried. any recording made have artifacts or were cut to some shorter allowable time period.

back in the summer of 2007, i ordered a macbook pro and finally have one in the fall and as of today, got it to record off my 8300hd dvr. i should say capture, as it is through the firewire that is build in on the macbook pro.

many of the solutions posted here in the forum, like avcvideocap, vlc, and mpeg streamclip works somewhat, but they all have distortions of some kind, so i tried more googling and finally today, landed on iRecord

iRecord produced what i perceived as flawless captures off the hard drive.

http://www.zoto.com/paulchiu/img/original/2a66720e5274faf5ad653336b85e0be2.jpg

this is finally great news.

i will test some more as i work to get years of recordings off the dvr and the external drives onto my nas and blu-ray disks.

happy happy



paul

..oh btw, you'll need a very fast external drive. i got a seagate freeagent pro 750gb external with sata connectors. next i got a smartcard to sata for the macbook pro.
this way, streams up to 3gb/s can be loaded onto the external drive w/o any hickups.

like many here, i am a time warner cable customer in nyc using 8300hd dvr and have a few external hard drives full of hd 1080i and hd 720p material. material that even today does not have any blu-ray of hd-dvd availability.

i have for years (since 2004) been trying to find a computer solution to record hd material from cable, since the good people at time warner stopped my d-vhs decks from working!


anyway, pc with windows simply does not work with vlc, capdvhs or anything else i've tried. any recording made have artifacts or were cut to some shorter allowable time period.

back in the summer of 2007, i ordered a macbook pro and finally have one in the fall and as of today, got it to record off my 8300hd dvr. i should say capture, as it is through the firewire that is build in on the macbook pro.

many of the solutions posted here in the forum, like avcvideocap, vlc, and mpeg streamclip works somewhat, but they all have distortions of some kind, so i tried more googling and finally today, landed on iRecord

iRecord produced what i perceived as flawless captures off the hard drive.

http://www.zoto.com/paulchiu/img/original/2a66720e5274faf5ad653336b85e0be2.jpg

this is finally great news.

i will test some more as i work to get years of recordings off the dvr and the external drives onto my nas and blu-ray disks.

happy happy



paul


Which one and where did you get it?

Thanks....:confused:

iRecord is free!

get it here, i tried the 0.4 version so far with about 10 hours of 1080i completed, still no errors like those blocks, flashes, and skipped frames....(yeah, you know what i am talkin' about!)....
doing some abc-hd and cbs-hd stuff tonight...

link:
http://www.ammesset.com/irecord/

good luck,
paul





Which one and where did you get it?

Thanks....:confused:

iRecord will not see my 4240HDC, same problem as every other recording app. Anyone have any suggestions before I take it back to Cox and ask for a 3250HD instead?

i am sorry to hear that.

now that i had a day+ with iRecord and several hd programs recorded in my 8300HD dvr and sata externals that were attached, i have several findings i'd share with everyone.

1. iRecord can do all the non encrypted hd programming recorded with the 8300hd. programs from hdnet, hdnet movies did not record with iRecord.
some hbo-hd films did record under iRecord but cannot be played back with the mac or pc versions of VLC. the recorded version could be played back perfectly with a pc version of powerDVD ultra. so, since i do not know of a powerdvd version for the mac, i could not playthe irecord version on the mac.

2. for those hdnet and other encypted (QAM) programs, i've found that some can be captured with AVCvideocap, but with the occasional blocking that does spoil a "perfect copy" and the near "perfect" copies from iRecord.

3. i tried googling some more, but mplayer and some other firewire capture programs (free) did not seem to do anything.

4. mpeg streamclip does not seem to do anything or that d-vhs emulator.
pretty clueless there.

5. after about 5 films and some extensive spot checking of the result with iRecord, i started to see the occasional artifacts. this does make it obviously not "blu-ray", but far far better than what i had before, which is 4 full SATA external drives and a full 8300hd internal with no way to save anything in case that 8300hd were to crash and die.

in summary:
iRecord does am almost perfect (98%) job and avcvideocap mops up with a 92% job on programs iRecord cannot do.

i do not have any means to tweak the iRecord or avcvideocap programs. i wished there were some out there that can....

anyone knows of any?



paul









iRecord will not see my 4240HDC, same problem as every other recording app. Anyone have any suggestions before I take it back to Cox and ask for a 3250HD instead?

i just got my 8300 hd with firewire from time warner central ny,i have irecord and avcvideocap,and when i go to record it will make the file but there is no content,also nothing is shown in the emi box,is there something i am doing wrong it shows that the 8300 is there but when it makes the m2t file there is nothing in it,also sometimes it will say device disconnected during capture when i record with the avcvideocap software,does that me they have the channels blocked

also after a minute of capture it will say device disconnected during capture ,and this is on a cbshd channel,i am confused lol

i went into the Diagnostic Mode in the time warner 8300 hdc box and on the 1394 firewire page which is page 23 it says its unavaliable,but my i mac sees the box,also the software version is 1.90.5.106,the guy in utica told me i need version 2.2

after last week's early success with off loading some hdtv 1080i and 720p content from the 8300hd dvr onto an external hard drive connected to my macbook pro 2.4 17", i started looking at my old d-vhs hdtv tape collection from years ago. (2000-2006)

i managed to connect an old d-vhs recorder to the mbp-17 through firewire. as many of you know, cable companies stopped supporting d-vhs hdtv recorders about 2-3 years ago and some of us early adaptors were screwed with $1000 to $2500 hdtv tape recorders that cannot record in hiDef anymore.

i build a large collection of hdtv tapes from 2000-2005, some 300+ titles. after some early success with transferring from a 8300hd dvr onto the macbook pro 17", i figure to give the old d-vhs recorder a try. the results were better than recording off the 8300hd dvr as before the cable company stopped the d-vhs recording, the signal through firewire was nearly 20 mbs, that's serious data throughput onto the tape. now, it's more like 12-15mbs at peaks onto the 8300hd dvr.

program used was virtualdvhs.app within the aapl firewire sdk26 developer pack. it's free and works fairly well.


http://www.zoto.com/paulchiu/img/original/b5bc40788f1a2a5959b9199f75a64e87.jpg


Me

why does my mac see the 8300hdc but when i go to record its o bytes

why does my mac see the 8300hdc but when i go to record its o bytes

Paul, Are the channels flagged for copy freely? Do you have an ext HD piggy-backed to the 8300? I have had similar problems w/ the 3250 that for unknown reasons I got a 0 mb file after a "successful capture". I have a 95% rate for successful captures. I am using a 500 mhz G4 PB that sometimes freezes up during a capture or records a "scrambled" signal. I was getting 100% captures with a 1.25 ghz eMac and USB 2.0 ext HD but my wife got tired of the eMac messing up her decor of the room. Sometimes the PB sees the 3250 but I cannot select the record button. I then will disconnect the 3250, turn it off, reboot, or a combination of all three to get the connection working again for a capture. I think that maybe turning off the 3250 while still connected to the PB may disrupt the signal.

Have you thought to try the 3250 to see if it would work?

Brett

my emi will not say anything,so nothing shows up as copy free or copy once its just blank, also when i go into the diagnostic setup of the time warner 8300 box on page 22 is the 1394 page,mind will say all over the page unavailable,so can someone tell me that can record off a 8300 time warner box what does it say on page 22-1394 page

Hey guys I have a new Mac-mini (1.8 model) connected to a DCT-3416 and I just downloaded the Firewire Dev Kit and just opened AVCBrowser no more than 10 minutes ago. Haven't read any readme's and I will do just that but for now what does all this mean....

Creating AVCDeviceCommandInterface.

Device opened successfully.

Compare-swap to output plug 0 successful. OldVal=0x80008178 NewVal=0x81008178

=============== AVC Command ===============
cType: Status
subUnit: 0xFF
opCode: Unit Info (0x30)
FCP command frame:
01 FF 30 FF FF FF FF FF

=============== AVC Response ===============
response: Implemented/Stable
subUnit: 0xFF
opCode: Unit Info (0x30)
FCP response frame:
0C FF 30 07 28 00 19 A6

=============== AVC Command ===============
cType: Control
subUnit: 0x20
opCode: Record (0xC2)
FCP command frame:
00 20 C2 75

=============== AVC Response ===============
response: Not Implemented
subUnit: 0x20
opCode: Record (0xC2)
FCP response frame:
08 20 C2 75

=============== AVC Command ===============
cType: Control
subUnit: 0x20
opCode: Play (0xC3)
FCP command frame:
00 20 C3 75

=============== AVC Response ===============
response: Not Implemented
subUnit: 0x20
opCode: Record (0xC2)
FCP response frame:
08 20 C2 75

=============== AVC Command ===============
cType: Control
subUnit: 0x20
opCode: Play (0xC3)
FCP command frame:
00 20 C3 75

=============== AVC Response ===============
response: Not Implemented
subUnit: 0x20
opCode: Play (0xC3)
FCP response frame:
08 20 C3 75

=============== AVC Command ===============
cType: Control
subUnit: 0x20
opCode: Record (0xC2)
FCP command frame:
00 20 C2 75

=============== AVC Response ===============
response: Not Implemented
subUnit: 0x20
opCode: Record (0xC2)
FCP response frame:
08 20 C2 75

Error: No input plug selected

Error: No input plug selected

Error: No input plug selected

Error: No input plug selected

Compare-swap to output plug 0 successful. OldVal=0x81008178 NewVal=0x82008178

=============== AVC Command ===============
cType: Control
subUnit: 0x20
opCode: Record (0xC2)
FCP command frame:
00 20 C2 75

=============== AVC Response ===============
response: Not Implemented
subUnit: 0x20
opCode: Record (0xC2)
FCP response frame:
08 20 C2 75

Yay! I've made my first successful FULL capture from the DVR of my 8300HD onto my powerbook--20GB of 1080i goodness!

Now the question becomes what to do with it...

I am lucky enough to have access to some cross-platform goodness (a Core2Duo Vista machine), and some basic software tools.

However, I'm stuck at the first step--I want to crop the black bars from the transport stream.

I've used the Windows program HDTV to MPEG2 to do an initial editing pass and cut the m2t file into a few ts files.

Any suggestions on how to remove both the letterbox AND pillarbox bars that are on the video while maintaining maximum quality?

I'm guessing there must be some tool available (on the Mac or on Windows) that can remove just the black frame, leaving the active image for further scaling/transcoding....

Any ideas?
brad

You would need to completely reencode the video to remove bars. Nearly any good encoding application will have the ability to crop the source when encoding.

I'm guessing there must be some tool available (on the Mac or on Windows) that can remove just the black frame, leaving the active image for further scaling/transcoding....

Any ideas?
brad

Brad,

I came across a thread on burning HD material to DVD-R w/ Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro. You might want to check them out if you got them.

Brett

You would need to completely reencode the video to remove bars. Nearly any good encoding application will have the ability to crop the source when encoding.

Yes, I was guessing as much. I've done a little experimenting with ffmpegX, but would like some guidance from folks more experienced than I....

I came across a thread on burning HD material to DVD-R w/ Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro. You might want to check them out if you got them.

Thanks, but those apps are a little rich for my blood.... :)

As I mentioned earlier, I've been playing with ffmpegX and have gotten mediocre results. The resulting video is a bit more 'juddery' (but not awful) as well as being softer/blurrier--yet I think I've ratcheted up the bitrate pretty high.

The initial video reads as: MPEG-TS format--mpeg2video, yuv420p, 1920x1088, 17500kb/s.

My transcoded video settings end up being: MPEG-TS format--ffmpeg mpeg2, 720x480, 8750kbps, DVD16:9 aspect, crop enabled

On the plus side, audio is working great by just doing 'passthrough'.

Any more thoughts?
brad

You probably need to deinterlace or apply IVTC to the video, though I've never done video encoding on a Mac so I wouldn't know where to set those options.

I found a 'deinterlace' option in the ffmpegX interface--it seems to help a little bit on a different clip that I captured last night.

Not to be dense, but what is 'IVTC'?

Surely there must be a simpler way to do this than mucking around with MPEG Streamclip and ffmpegX....

brad

IVTC stands for inverse telecine, which is the process of reversing the field duplication done to take 24p content to 30i for broadcasting.

Most dramas and sitcoms are shot at 24fps, but because broadcast standard specify 30 (technically 29.97, but 30 is easier to type), the frames are split on alternating lines into fields (all even lines make one, and all odd make the other), for a total of 48 fields per second. Some of these fields are then duplicated to get 60 fields per second which is what you see on a 480i or 1080i broadcast. This needs to be reversed for best conversion to any other format or you will end up with judder/jerkiness/blending in the video.

Ah, thanks! I've heard (and am somewhat familiar with) the telecine process--just not enough to be up on my acronyms... :)

I'm 99% sure that my source was originally shot on video, so I'm not worried about pulldowns and the like....

I think I'm coming to the (perhaps obvious) conclusion that it's impossible to 'losslessly' remove letter/pillarboxing from an HDTV broadcast.

Deinterlacing has helped a bit, and I discovered the option to do multiple passes through the video, which I hope will help a bit more....

Any other tricks for maximizing the quality of saved HDTV archives?

brad

Do you have the option to change the resizing method? The default is probably bilinear or bicubic, but lanczos would result in a sharper picture if you have the option for it.

more amazing stuff the mbp-17 helped me captured

from hdnet...

http://www.zoto.com/paulchiu/img/original/372b3242e3cdc2b4eb025f9dfd9a91fe.jpg

from oscars

http://www.zoto.com/paulchiu/img/original/aef3d4cb58c4abdbeeaa8bddf95d118b.jpg

http://www.zoto.com/paulchiu/img/original/1232b4eeec8a20f7d3d609de2fc43eea.jpg


all using iRecord under now leopard 10.5.2 with an external SATA drive using eSATA cable connection to 2.4ghz MBP-17

hdnet in 1080i

oscars in 720p

everything as is.

paul

I'm guessing there must be some tool available (on the Mac or on Windows) that can remove just the black frame, leaving the active image for further scaling/transcoding....


Did you find any? Putting my new 2.5ghz penryn MBP through it's paces. Already have the SDK and have got streams captured... but now would prefer to get them to a form usable by my PS3. Also considering a Blu-ray burner. Does any of the included software include anything to make this possible, or is it gonna need some expensive video software?

I mean for general transcoding... IOW, anything other than ffmpegX

I use VisualHub for the mac for transcoding all of my HD captures. It isn't as tweakable as ffmpeg, but it is set up with built in presets for just about everything...iPod, Xvid, AppleTV HD. It also has an Auto crop feature to remove the black bars.

visualhub.net

Did you find any? Putting my new 2.5ghz penryn MBP through it's paces. Already have the SDK and have got streams captured... but now would prefer to get them to a form usable by my PS3. Also considering a Blu-ray burner. Does any of the included software include anything to make this possible, or is it gonna need some expensive video software?

I mean for general transcoding... IOW, anything other than ffmpegX

I just put them on my NAS (http://www.buffalotech.com/products/network-storage/terastation/terastation-live/) with DLNA capability and give them the '.MPG' extension and they work fine. It's my eyeTV recording that I can't get to play correctly. At least several recordings I made from UniversalHD ('12 Monkeys' and some BSGs), and Veronica Mars from my local CW channel. (I even got the 'Painkiller Jane' marathon from UniversalHD and just played the whole stream through the day.) This is using my Pioneer Blu-Ray (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=862544) to stream the files.
The only trick is using MPEGStreamclip to edit out the commercials (this is on a Dual 1.25 GHz G4 so pretty slow).

I never did find a great tool. I was having trouble with VisualHub, so finally settled on ffmpegX.

The only problem is that there are so many options, it's a bit intimidating at first.

I did discover the (perhaps obvious) fact that removing the bars from a captured MPEG2 stream is a total re-encode, since the bars are sent as part of the signal.

Took some time on my aging G4... :) The results were good, however, so I'll continue playing around with it.

Best,
Brad

Each time I record via firewire from a Motorola 6416 DVR (Cox Cable in Rhode Island) to my MacBook Pro operating under OSX 10.4.11, I have to reboot the DVR if I want to do any additional recording from the same saved telecast. Thus, I have to reboot and re-research for any saved footage that I want to record. It's a real pain. I did not have this problem when I had a Motorola 6412 which I swapped for the 6416 which has more HD recording memory. Anyone have any guesses why I am having this problem?

Each time I record via firewire from a Motorola 6416 DVR (Cox Cable in Rhode Island) to my MacBook Pro operating under OSX 10.4.11, I have to reboot the DVR if I want to do any additional recording from the same saved telecast. Thus, I have to reboot and re-research for any saved footage that I want to record. It's a real pain. I did not have this problem when I had a Motorola 6412 which I swapped for the 6416 which has more HD recording memory. Anyone have any guesses why I am having this problem?

James, try disconnecting the FW cable before turning off the DVR. I have been having freezing problems w/ my SA 3250 and thought it might be due to turning it off while still connected to the computer. I have not had any freeze problems during captures since I have been disconnecting the cable box. I also have been rebooting the powerbook each time to clear out any settings. I have had 5 or 6 in a row successful captures since following these procedures.

Brett

Hi

I recently purchased a new Mac Book Pro 2.4 C2Duo with Leopard 10.5 and would like to connect it via firewire to my SA8300HD (cablevision N. NJ) and transfer my, mostly CBSHD, recordings to the laptop.

I had a couple concerns after reading a post in this thread about someone connecting the equipment but then having their saved recordings erased from the 8300HD. Has this happened to anyone else? Should I be worried?

What is the proper procedure for plugging/connecting and powering on/off the devices to ensure that this does not happen?

Also the correct cable to purchase is a 6 pin to 6 pin right?

Thanks for any help with these concerns.

take care
D.

I haven't had a problem with any erased recordings....

I usually have my computer on & the 8300HD off. I plug the 6pin-6pin cable in to each device, then power on the settop box. Finally, I launch the capture program.

YMMV, but everything works pretty well for me...
brad

Thank you very much for the reply Brad.

I was concerned about losing my saved programs before I had a chance to transfer and watch them again. I just need to buy my firewire cable and I should be ready to give this a shot.

take care

Thank you very much for the reply Brad.

I was concerned about losing my saved programs before I had a chance to transfer and watch them again. I just need to buy my firewire cable and I should be ready to give this a shot.

take care

don't spend to much on them. Get them from one of the links at the top of the page. monoprice is a good bet

I have read the first ten pages of this string and done a Google search, but I am still confused. All the messages I have read seem to deal with recording from an over-the-air signal or a settop box to the Mac using the Firewire SDK programs, where the media files then reside for editing or playing.

Like many people, my STB is already a DVR and contains movies, programs and other files that I have recorded using the program guide and scheduling functionality of the STB. Is it possible to merely copy these files via Firewire using software from the Firewire SDK, rather than recording a stream on the Mac itself?

don't spend to much on them. Get them from one of the links at the top of the page. monoprice is a good bet

Thank you very much for that. I was looking around and the best price for Belkin or Monster was over $30. Went to monoprice, and with 2-3 day shipping, total was $7.67 for a 6pin/6pin 6 ft, black. Sweet deal :)

thanks again.

Is it possible to merely copy these files via Firewire using software from the Firewire SDK, rather than recording a stream on the Mac itself?

No, it's not possible to copy the pre-recorded shows from your DVR as you would from a firewire hard drive (unless you have a TIVO, in which case it is done through ethernet).

You can, however, play a recorded show from your DVR and catch the stream on your Mac using AVCapture, etc., assuming the show is flagged "Copy Freely".

You can, however, play a recorded show from your DVR and catch the stream on your Mac using AVCapture, etc., assuming the show is flagged "Copy Freely".

Thanks. Are these flags set by the broadcaster or can they be manipulated by the user?

Thanks. Are these flags set by the broadcaster or can they be manipulated by the user?

Copy freely is set by the cable company. Comcast in Eugene, Oregon, has copy freely on most of the channels that are in its basic digital package and some of its extended package. There are a few non-network HD channels that are copy freely as well as all but one of the network HD channels (I can't copy ABC for some reason). You won't see any premium channels that are copy freely. In those cases you have to make copies via S-Video rather than Firewire.

My understanding is that Comcast can restrict digital copying any way they choose so my situation may change at any time. They're adding a bunch of HD channels on May 1 and I wonder how that will change my copy freely options.

Meanwhile, the latest ElGato EyeTV Hybrid and 250+ reportedly will tune and record copy freely stations from cable. My year-old EyeTV Hybrid can't do this. I want to get the new one and try it out because it will save me from having to do the transfer from my DVR except when the program I want to transfer is saved to the DVR's hard drive.

for anyone here in new york city, the exciting news is that time warner cable has opened their pockets and bought in tons of additional bandwidth so now after 4/30/2008, there are some 40 new HDTV channels. some, like CNN-HD and FOX Business-HD are just great for news and stock junkies like me.

best is that these QAM delivered shows can be captured to my macbook pro using just a simple firewire 400 cable and iRecord software.


these are 2 stills captured off channel 743 FOX-HD this afternoon. The 720p quality is good enough even when freezed and downloaded.

http://www.zoto.com/paulchiu/img/original/84a73888381fed114bcc3bde4d9751dc.jpg


http://www.zoto.com/paulchiu/img/original/9743fc84156c550a7a9c6cdfcc531157.jpg

paul

So I see you probably watch the news for the babes . . .
:-)

i was amazed how sharp the letters looked on the right and bottom!
:cool:

So I see you probably watch the news for the babes . . .
:-)

i was amazed how sharp the letters looked on the right and bottom!
:cool:


Is there a post you followed in this thread that set you up or did you just follow the instructions from the 1st post. That looks kind of old from 2004.

Maybe you can write a step by step on how you setup your mbp?

Thanks

I have tried this with 10.4 and now works with 10.5.2

1. get the latest firewire SDK software suite from apple.
http://developer.apple.com/sdk/#FireWireX


2. get irecord.app from
http://www.ammesset.com/irecord/
beta 0.5 works for me


3. after you have your firewire cable from your HD-DVR connected with the MAC running Leopard, start the HD program on the cable box and run irecord. i use an external drive connected with SATA cables and adaptor. depending on the bit rate of the hd program and 1080i or 720p, an hour can be nearly 10gb so an external SATA drive is essential.

4. if irecord cannot capture the HD program, try AVCvideocap.app from the apple sdk firewire kit.

5. i find that one of these 2 works 80%+ of the time.

6. playback of the m2t file with VLC under MAC or powerdvd under windows. yes! while some captured m2t may not play with VLC on a mac, it may play with powerDVD under windows XP or vista. so, be ready to copy over the captured program so a windows pc can read it before deleting as DOA.

paul









Is there a post you followed in this thread that set you up or did you just follow the instructions from the 1st post. That looks kind of old from 2004.

Maybe you can write a step by step on how you setup your mbp?

Thanks

Routines from the Firewire SDK are now compiled directly into the MythTV executables for MacOS. I've had no trouble recording to a G5 tower or to an intel mini from my Motorola 6412.

I use an old G4 1.25Mhz Mac Mini to record via firewire, using AVCvideocap. It handles the recording no problems at all, even though it can't play back the files. The iRecord app seems great, more advanced, but for some reason it seems to fail to record once in a while, either updates or screensavers seem to preempt it somehow.
Also, I've found that for either program, changing the channel via program and then immediately recording causes a garbled recording. In experimenting I found that there needed to be a few seconds pause between the channel change and the recording. I ended up just setting the channel by hand and not using the program to change channels.

I have tried this with 10.4 and now works with 10.5.2

1. get the latest firewire SDK software suite from apple.
http://developer.apple.com/sdk/#FireWireX


2. get irecord.app from
http://www.ammesset.com/irecord/
beta 0.5 works for me


3. after you have your firewire cable from your HD-DVR connected with the MAC running Leopard, start the HD program on the cable box and run irecord. i use an external drive connected with SATA cables and adaptor. depending on the bit rate of the hd program and 1080i or 720p, an hour can be nearly 10gb so an external SATA drive is essential.

4. if irecord cannot capture the HD program, try AVCvideocap.app from the apple sdk firewire kit.

5. i find that one of these 2 works 80%+ of the time.

6. playback of the m2t file with VLC under MAC or powerdvd under windows. yes! while some captured m2t may not play with VLC on a mac, it may play with powerDVD under windows XP or vista. so, be ready to copy over the captured program so a windows pc can read it before deleting as DOA.

paul



The 1st step you posted is getting SDK software suite. Is there steps on what I need to do with it before going to step 2? I'm totally new to Apple, I have no idea what's going on lol. Waiting for my MBP to come so I just wanted a heads up of what's ahead of me.

I knew exactly what to do via the PC but most people like me couldn't get glitch free results with it so I had to get an Apple which I really didn't want to lol.

Thanks for the help

Hey

I am very new to Macs and just started capturing from my SA8300HD. I used iRecord and it captured about 4 mins for a total of 299 mb. I see the m2t file in my movies folder, but I cannot play it to check to see if it worked.

I have d/led VLC and played a reg mpg2 vid without issue, but I cannot get this m2t file to play to see if I did this correct or not.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

thanks

k-man,

same history here.... i tried for years to capture using windows with many computers and none gave me clean artifacts free results.

with apple mbp and leopard 10.5.2, i am getting a lot of clean captures.

after step 1. install according to instructions. avcvideocap.app is an important app you'll use.

irecord.app is the other app for capture.

the only other thing you'll need is a SATA connector into your MBP, about $110 and an external SATA hard drive. i got a 750gb external SATA and it's nearly full with HD shows.

that's it.

please post once your MBP is in.

paul







The 1st step you posted is getting SDK software suite. Is there steps on what I need to do with it before going to step 2? I'm totally new to Apple, I have no idea what's going on lol. Waiting for my MBP to come so I just wanted a heads up of what's ahead of me.

I knew exactly what to do via the PC but most people like me couldn't get glitch free results with it so I had to get an Apple which I really didn't want to lol.

Thanks for the help

captain,

welcome to MAC

that m2t file needs to be played with powerdvd if it were to play at all.
so copy that onto a hard drive that can be read with windows and play it with poweredvd version 7 or version 8.

after you capture from 8300HD onto MAC controlled hard drive using avcvideocap.app or irecord.app, the compressed hd file may not play with MAC version of VLC or the MAC DIVX player, so try doing the above to see if that m2t file is really junk or not.

hope this helps

paul







Hey

I am very new to Macs and just started capturing from my SA8300HD. I used iRecord and it captured about 4 mins for a total of 299 mb. I see the m2t file in my movies folder, but I cannot play it to check to see if it worked.

I have d/led VLC and played a reg mpg2 vid without issue, but I cannot get this m2t file to play to see if I did this correct or not.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

thanks

If you're getting unplayable files, you may be trying to record from channels that are flagged as 'Record Once' or 'Never record' (something like that), in other words channels that are restricted. The only channels you can record playable files from are flagged 'Record Freely'. For instance, I can record all local networks, SciFi channel, Discovery channel etc, but not HBO, Cinemax etc. The file for restricted channels are just random garbage.

Also, I'm using a regular USB 2.0 hard drive for my captures, it doesn't give me any problem. I there a reason you guys need a SATA drive with MPB?

Thanks for the replies guys.

Cavalier, the program I am recording is from my DVR's hard drive and was recorded from CBSHD.

Paul,

I think my problem is not that VLC won't play the file, its the file itself. I don't think I captured it properly. I can load the file into VLC, but when I hit play, it runs right through and stops, less than 4 secs. I click on the more info tab and check the stats of the file, and the video has all zeroes as well as the audio, so I assume I did not capture it correctly.

When I did the capture it said recording pending on the bottom while it said recorded and showed a time above. Can you let me know the proper settings to use to for recording from the hard drive, channel 1000, etc. I don't think I set it up right.

Again, really appreciate you taking the time to post a reply, thank you so much.

Hey

So I gave this another try just a minute ago. What I did different was changed the channel from recording "000" to "1000" which is my DVR playback channel.

The bottom now said "recording event" I let it record for about 1:30 just for a test and then stopped event. It saved another 200 mb mt2 file.

I opened VLC again and loaded it on the playlist. When I hit play I received this error message:

ps:cannot peek
main: no suitable demux module for ///users/***/movies/untitled 002.m2t

Any idea what this means or how I can possibly fix this?

thanks

Hey

I gave the AVCapture a try and it recognized the device and I started to play my recorded CBSHD program of the DVR hard drive.

In the EMI section it said "copy once" and from my understanding that means it cannot be captured correct?

Any way around this?

Hey

I gave the AVCapture a try and it recognized the device and I started to play my recorded CBSHD program of the DVR hard drive.

In the EMI section it said "copy once" and from my understanding that means it cannot be captured correct?

Any way around this?
My understanding is there is no way to make a Copy Once program playable on a computer. You would need to capture it with an analog-to-digital device connected via S-video or composite video.

Thanks for the reply, thats what I figured.

Technically, public networks are not supposed to be restricted like that, they're supposed to be 'copy freely'. Usually the culprit is Time Warner cable. Comcast is pretty cool about what they flag as protected, but Time Warner Cable fights it like tooth and nail because they know the FCC too busy to enforce the laws against them. The device that can record and play back 'copy once' is usually a D-VHS machine (that's what AVCapture and the others are actually emulating in the first place)

k-man,

same history here.... i tried for years to capture using windows with many computers and none gave me clean artifacts free results.

with apple mbp and leopard 10.5.2, i am getting a lot of clean captures.

after step 1. install according to instructions. avcvideocap.app is an important app you'll use.

irecord.app is the other app for capture.

the only other thing you'll need is a SATA connector into your MBP, about $110 and an external SATA hard drive. i got a 750gb external SATA and it's nearly full with HD shows.

that's it.

please post once your MBP is in.


paul



Hey, Thanks, Anxiously waiting for my MBP to come. Might have other questions to ask you later on if you don't mind.

BTW, You are able to stream FBN and FNC HD? I'm with TWC in Queens.

Well, CBSHD seems to be copy once, but NBCHD sure is not:

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2002-10/61187/EL_Leno_5-13-08.jpg

:D

has anybody in the upstate new york or new york state with time warner with the 8300 box and a imac have got to record or see a stream, why is it when i dont have the firewire hooked up to the mac it says disabled,then when i hook it up it will say univalable,tw is telling me its a dtcp issue,and wont do anything about it,after 4 months of trying to get them to fix it

Well, another cable system in my area has CBSHD set to copy freely, hopefully my system will soon.

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2002-10/61187/GW_S03E17_HDTV_Don1.jpg

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2002-10/61187/GW_S03E17_HDTV_Don2.jpg

:D :)

iRecord is free!

get it here, i tried the 0.4 version so far...

link:
http://www.ammesset.com/irecord/

good luck,
paul

hi.. i dont check avsforum regularly, but have been on recently looking for tips on transcoding .m2t streams (which i seem to get fine from my 8300hdc via fw with avcvideocap to my 2g intel core2 duo macbook). ideally, i want to save them in a form i could probably burn to dvd at some point, but right now, as long as i can play them on the mac, im ok. (so far, all have been copy freely)

virtualdvhs makes .tsnavi files for them (though im not sure what to do with those, ive just been leaving them in the same place), and vlc has been able to play all but one out of seven so far. ive transcoded a couple with mpegstreamclip to .mpeg streams (not bought the quicktime upgrade at this point), and tried exporting via vlc wizard to mpeg4 using mpeg 4 or h.264 compression, but it never seems to do anything except add a playlist item called Streaming/Transcoding Wizard (1/1 ...?

i would love to try irecord, since it sounds like it makes it all so simple, but i am still working in OSX 10.4.11, and the only version that appears available is the 0.5beta for leopard. is there a way i can get version 0.4 from someone, since i cant seem to find it anywhere at all to download anymore? (missed it by...that much..? :() id be very grateful for any additional tips as well!

thanx so very much! :)

adrien
cincinnati, twc mdn sa8300hdc; no HDtv yet, just happy with whatever content i get..
moving to nc within a month and trying to get everything off the box first

AVCBrowser can be used to send commands to the panel subunit. Without going in to great detail here, you could try:

00487CE70400xxFFFF,

where xx is the channel number from 0x00 to 0xFF (in hex).


I scanned through most of the posts on this thread and was not able to find an answer...

I just got a Scientific Atlanta Explorer 4250HD for my Rogers cable service here in Toronto, and was very happy that the unadvertised and unsupported Firewire input/output actually works.

I installed the latest Firewire SDK (as of June 2008) and I've been successful in using AVCVideoCap and VirtualDVHS to capture non-encrypted streams, and VLC to view live streams. It seems like about half of the channels are encrypted, but that still gives me a lot of HD content recordable through the Firewire, when I fully expected not to have any.

My issues are:

1 - I can use FriarWyer's method (quoted above) to change channels by Firewire using AVCBrowser-- it works great! However, AVCVideoCap and FireRecord (formerly iRecord) do NOT successfully change the channel, and the Applescripts on this thread are out of date and unusable.

Is there way of sending these channel change hex codes to my SA 4250HD through an Applescript, bypassing the AVCBrowser application? Or am I stuck using GUI scripting to send keystrokes to AVCBrowser?

2 - FireRecord does not record my streams successfully, even for unencrypted channels.

Thanks,
Graham Jones
(Developer of iEye Captain for EyeTV, in case you're interested)

The code for changing channels in the SDK that avcvideocap and irecord uses is pretty straightforward. If you are a developer you might be able to create a command line app to just tune the channel pretty quickly and call that from Applescript. If I remember correctly, once you have the connection, it is just one call to get the panel subunit from the device and then one more call to send the command.

Patrick
(Former developer of iRecord/FireRecord, in case you're interested :)

Hi Patrick,

Thanks for the reply... I'm curious what you mean by "former developer" -- does that mean you have stopped developing your app? If so, that's unfortunate, because it fills a need that nothing else does.

I'm afraid my development skills are probably not up to the task you mention... I've never made a command line app before. However, as you suggest, I'll look into the SDK and see if I can marry my skills to what I need to do.

So there's no current way to do what I need using simple Applescript and existing apps?

Thanks,
Graham Jones.

Hi,

I have a Scientific Atlanta 4250 cable box. I use this command to tune to a particular channel. eg: For tuning to 61 -> 00487CE704003D0000

But I am looking for channel up/down command : (up-> 00487CB000 doesn't work). Is there any documentation I can refer to?

Thanks in advance
- Jay

Hi Jay,

yes, I have found that entering the codes in manually in AVCBrowser does change the channels over the firewire.

However, this isn't very useful to me until I can figure out a way to schedule this, via an Applescript or shell script of some kind. I've been using FireRecord to schedule recordings, but I have to set the channel on the 4250HD manually, because FireRecord's channel change signals do nothing on my 4250HD (nor do the ones in Apple's AVCVideoCap application).

Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,
Graham.

Hi Jay,

yes, I have found that entering the codes in manually in AVCBrowser does change the channels over the firewire.

However, this isn't very useful to me until I can figure out a way to schedule this, via an Applescript or shell script of some kind. I've been using FireRecord to schedule recordings, but I have to set the channel on the 4250HD manually, because FireRecord's channel change signals do nothing on my 4250HD (nor do the ones in Apple's AVCVideoCap application).

Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,
Graham.

I am working on a mac app :) But I need to know the codes first. if someone have any documents or any pointers, I will be able to finish my project .

Here is the command line utility i wrote to change channel on 4250HD .

Usage: AVCTuner -c xx or AVCTuner -d -c xx ( for debug) or simply AVCTuner to get help.

- Jay

Hi,

That's brilliant! Works perfectly! Thank you thank you!

I'll go hunting for those up/down codes...

Many thanks again!

- G.

Hi Jay,

http://pbx.mine.nu/dvhs/AVC_30.pdf is the document I was thinking of, and does not appear to have the answer for channel up & down codes.

Do any of the experts out there have the answer?

Thanks,
Graham.

Hi Patrick,

Thanks for the reply... I'm curious what you mean by "former developer" -- does that mean you have stopped developing your app? If so, that's unfortunate, because it fills a need that nothing else does.

I'm afraid my development skills are probably not up to the task you mention... I've never made a command line app before. However, as you suggest, I'll look into the SDK and see if I can marry my skills to what I need to do.

So there's no current way to do what I need using simple Applescript and existing apps?

Thanks,
Graham Jones.
Hi - sorry I didn't see this earlier. I no longer have a set top box and haven't been able to do any real development on the application. I tried doing some development in the absence of hardware - fixing bugs that people reported and adding simple changes, but that is generally just a recipe for messing things up when you can't test it out yourself :)

I am working on a mac app :) But I need to know the codes first. if someone have any documents or any pointers, I will be able to finish my project .
- Jay

This is one of the hardest parts imo. This may have changed, but technically there is a fee for the FireWire unit specs, and they are not supposed to be distributed otherwise (i.e. shared). In the past, intensive Google searches and sorting through the resulting mess has turned up draft versions and sometimes final versions of the specs for people.

Another issue (again, as a couple of years ago at least) is that although a couple of manufactures used the panel subunit commands that you will find in the specs/docs, many used custom op codes to change channels.

Hi,

Thanks for your reply. That's too bad... FireRecord works great! I used it (v 0.5) this month to successfully record about 20 high def movies. Luckily all the movies are on the same channel, as the one thing that neither FireRecord nor AVCVideoCap can do is change the channel successfully on my SA 4250HD... That said, now that Jay provided the channel changing app I can call from Applescript, I have all I need.

It would be wonderful if it was all in one app, or if FireRecord or any of the SDK apps were scriptable, but what I have works fine for my needs.

Thanks,
Graham.

Kaadray,

Thanks for your reply, I gave up on channel up/down etc for my app. Changing to a particular channel works and I am going to code around it.

- Jay

I seem to have the same problem. I can capture .m2t files but can't open them. I purposely used a channel with "copy freely" to make sure everything is working the way it should. SOMETHING is being recorded but what it is and why I can't play it (with VLC) is beyond me. I'm wondering if it's a problem with a specific firmware verison of the 8300HDC. Were you able to find a solution for this? I've seen some stray posts from some others in other sites concerning this combo (Comcast + 8300hdc and OS X).

Hey

I am very new to Macs and just started capturing from my SA8300HD. I used iRecord and it captured about 4 mins for a total of 299 mb. I see the m2t file in my movies folder, but I cannot play it to check to see if it worked.

I have d/led VLC and played a reg mpg2 vid without issue, but I cannot get this m2t file to play to see if I did this correct or not.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

thanks

So I can catpure all the m2t files I want but none of them are readable by VLC. Can somebody who has success with Comcast 8300HDC + Firewire + AVCVideoCap post the firmware + software versions on their 8300HDC units? Along with the versions of the AVCVideocap and VLC they used?

I'm trying to track down if this is a problem on my Mac or the Unit.

thanks ahead of time!

Hi,

I don't know if my unit is similar to yours, but I have found it very hit and miss which channels will record properly and which won't... even 3 channels by the same broadcaster. I had to test all of my HD channels, and can record on only about half of them, regardless of whether they say "Copy Freely" or not.

It's possible your cable provider has disabled recording for all channels...?

- Graham.

So I can catpure all the m2t files I want but none of them are readable by VLC. Can somebody who has success with Comcast 8300HDC + Firewire + AVCVideoCap post the firmware + software versions on their 8300HDC units? Along with the versions of the AVCVideocap and VLC they used?

I'm trying to track down if this is a problem on my Mac or the Unit.

thanks ahead of time!

Hey,

Check your PM box. Sorry for the delay.

I am also successful capturing m2t files but none of them are readable by VLC
or MPEG Streamclick . Has anyone had success with Cox SA 8300HD + Firewire + AVCVideoCap ?
If so, please post the firmware + software versions on your SA 8300HD unit.

AVCVideoCap reports EMI of Copy Freely.

MPEG STreamclip reports:
File open error: can't find video or audio tracks

Here is what the leading bytes of the captured file looks like (in hex):
0000000 0047 9b4d 1fd6 24b3 a2be d241 9780 b95b
0000010 97fd 0ee0 8003 b9c1 c013 1baa 3757 f8e6
0000020 ccee bea8 67a1 4e2b 838c 3886 6e70 4c0e
0000030 57e8 c7c5 5b2d 3448 858f 7ddd ebcd fe3e
0000040 d788 f06b e3f3 55ed 8f3f e5ae 1c97 2ab2

Suggestions?
Thanks in advance!

John

Hey guys.. I just came across this thread, as I just got really interested in firewire capture since i just upgraded to an HD box.. Scientific Atlanta 4250HD in Brooklyn using Cablevision.... im using a PowerBook G4 1.67 ghz, 2 gb ram, 80 gb hd, connecting with a thin white apple firewire cable

I've read alot of this thread, probably about 15 or 20 pages, and maybe someone here can help me..

Ive connected and started a stream through AVBrowser, and the stream played in VLC perfectly (although some of the HD channels [FOXHD] are coming in much bigger, the default VLC window is 3 times the size than the regular channels) and it looks like its loading one frame every 10 or 15 seconds, and the picture is frozen in between those..

Now, im not really interested in recording (not yet!!!) but i just wanna watch tv from my powerbook..

The only problem i have is that none of the cablevision data comes through the picture (the info box, or browsing other channels while pushing the UP button, only the video comes through...

does anyone know if theres a way to enable this??? cause it sucks changing the channel without knowing whats on

any help is appreciated, Thanks!!!

also, what happened to irecord... all of the links i found dont work..
i wanted to try that out

Just an fyi, your Powerbook can record HD over firewire just fine; however, you'll need a dual G5 or Intel core duo Mac to play it back, though.

FireRecord is what you want, I think the most current is vers. 0.5

although some of the HD channels [FOXHD] are coming in much bigger, the default VLC window is 3 times the size than the regular channels

That's what makes it high definition. All the HD channels will be much larger than the SD versions.

The only problem i have is that none of the cablevision data comes through the picture (the info box, or browsing other channels while pushing the UP button, only the video comes through...does anyone know if theres a way to enable this??? cause it sucks changing the channel without knowing whats on.

I don't think there is a whay to get any of the guide data to come through the firewire. I have a Mits HDTV with firewire, and when I watch TV through the firewire link, none of the guide data ever comes through. My TV's instruction manual warns about this.

You'll have no problems recording with your powerbook. But like chefklc said, you won't be able to watch anything with it. Also, recording HD tears through hard drive space.

I can successfully capture m2t files but none of them are readable by VLC
or MPEG Streamclick even though AVCVideoCap reports EMI of Copy Freely.

I looked up the .mt2 (mpeg transport stream ) data format at wikipedia and found that
the first 2 bits of the 4th byte of a transport packet are for scrambling control with:
'00' = Not scrambled, '01' = Reserved for future use, '10' = Scrambled with even key, '11' = Scrambled with odd key.

If examine one of my recordiings (that I am unable to play) by running the command:
od -t x1 Capture_Aug_30_2008__04_31_55_AM.m2t | head -1
I get:
0000000 47 00 4c 9e 7a a8 31 93 43 4c 7a 5e 91 aa a3 cb
The first byte (0x47) is the packet sync byte but the 4th byte (0x9e) begins
with leading 2 bits of '10' = Scrambled with even key!!:mad:

Can someone please confirm that this is indeed the case so that I can notify my cable provider and try to get this corrected?

Better yet, can someone please run:
od -t x1 <your_capture_file_that_actually_plays.m2t> | head -1
and verify that the first 2 bits of the 4th byte are '00' ?

Thanks,

John

Can someone please confirm that this is indeed the case so that I can notify my cable provider and try to get this corrected?

Better yet, can someone please run:
od -t x1 <your_capture_file_that_actually_plays.m2t> | head -1
and verify that the first 2 bits of the 4th byte are '00' ?

Thanks,

John

I ran the od command on both a COPY-ONCE protected program and a COPY-FREELY program, I did get the leading '00' in the 4th byte of the COPY FREELY program:

COPY_FREELY
0000000 47 27 c0 1f 60 23 ff dd ed 81 00 11 c1 0f f9 c1

COPY_ONCE
0000000 8f db 83 85 29 e0 d0 2b b3 f7 ab 5e 00 23 b6 45


I'm using Comcast in southern NH.
Good luck, let us know how it goes! :)

I ran the od command on both a COPY-ONCE protected program and a COPY-FREELY program, I did get the leading '00' in the 4th byte of the COPY FREELY program:

COPY_FREELY
0000000 47 27 c0 1f 60 23 ff dd ed 81 00 11 c1 0f f9 c1

COPY_ONCE
0000000 8f db 83 85 29 e0 d0 2b b3 f7 ab 5e 00 23 b6 45


I'm using Comcast in southern NH.
Good luck, let us know how it goes! :)

Thanks for the reply cavalierlwt. The COPY_FREELY result indeed confirms my suspicion.
I am puzzled as to why your COPY_ONCE data doesn't begin with 0x47 though.

I'm in the process of contacting my cable provider.

Thanks,

John

Thanks for the reply cavalierlwt. The COPY_FREELY result indeed confirms my suspicion.
I am puzzled as to why your COPY_ONCE data doesn't begin with 0x47 though.

I'm in the process of contacting my cable provider.

Thanks,

John

I think I somehow got a mangled sample due to the clip getting recorded while the channel was in the middle of changing. I was recording Discovery channel at the time, and I thought it was weird that it was coming up 'copy_once', it's normally copy_freely. I checked again and Discovery channel is still copy_freely. I capped a few more clips, plus some of HBO (which I know is copy_once) and all the results came out with 0x47 for the sync byte.

Thankfully Discovery channel and all the other non-Premium movie channels are still copy_freely!

Hello!

i have a motorola dct 3416i DVR with firewire out, and want to record video SD or HD to my Dual 2gHz mac G5. I have Final Cut Pro and Avid Media Composer that and record and i have a 500 gig secondary drive to record media. this should be simple, but i can't get it to work.

any hints?

Hello!

i have a motorola dct 3416i DVR with firewire out, and want to record video SD or HD to my Dual 2gHz mac G5. I have Final Cut Pro and Avid Media Composer that and record and i have a 500 gig secondary drive to record media. this should be simple, but i can't get it to work.

any hints?


Your not very spicific as to the problems your having are.

Follow the directions in post 1 of this thread.

problems: i don't see video or hear audio on my mac when atttached via firewire.
this happens while playing live TV or DVR media, on any channel, through either firewire port.

Haynie, I don't think you understand what recording over firewire means in this context. For instance, Final Cut Pro and Avid Media Composer aren't involved in any way.

At the most basic level, you plug a firewire cable from your STB into your Mac and then use an app--either FireRecord (formerly called iRecord) or AVCVideoCap in the FirewireSDK:

http://developer.apple.com/sdk/#FireWireX

to capture an HD stream just like a DVHS recorder would. You tune the STB to a particular channel manually, start recording, stop recording. You'll end up with something called a .m2t file. With a powerful enough Mac, you can play that file back with VLC, kind of a kitchen sink media player. Later you can edit the file and/or encode to a different video format with other tools, but first you have to find out which channels can be recorded, and if you even have an active firewire out port. You may not.

These are old articles, but read them to get your bearings:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060421212958602

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20040426151111599

I recommend FireRecord and use it with a SA 3250, just last night I grabbed Burn Notice off USA-HD. Good luck.

i want to capture the firewire signal into Avid or FCP software via firewire.

i've been doing this for years, where my avid or fcp application recognize the firewire input if it's coming in.

i don't need HD, but both apps take that as well.

i have VLC and have been using it for several years and i'm well versed in sorenson squeeze, flash, etc...

i just want to be sure the signal is coming out of the STB, which i doubt it is.
i have a camera with a firewire connection. it sees firewire coming from all my other firewiire sources, but not the STB.

it there a command to make that happen? has comcast disabled the firewire output on my STB?

FireRecord: do have do buy that?

thank you for the links to the developer site... now if it would just let me register...

i want to capture the firewire signal into Avid or FCP software via firewire.

i've been doing this for years, where my avid or fcp application recognize the firewire input if it's coming in.

i don't need HD, but both apps take that as well.

i have VLC and have been using it for several years and i'm well versed in sorenson squeeze, flash, etc...

For now, ALL of this is irrelevant.

i have a camera with a firewire connection. it sees firewire coming from all my other firewiire sources, but not the STB.

For now, ignore this, it is irrelevant.

i just want to be sure the signal is coming out of the STB, which i doubt it is.

Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner.

This is the ONLY thing you should be concerned with right now. And the way you determine this is what I explained to you above--just your STB, firewire to your Mac, and FireRecord or AVCVideoCap. Tune your STB to the HD channel version of a network, like CBS or NBC, then open up FireRecord, make sure it detects your particular STB model, tell it in preferences where to save the recording to, set the recording time (I'd go with 1-2 minutes as a test) and then start an "immediate event."

Once it's done, try to play the file back with VLC.

has comcast disabled the firewire output on my STB?

You won't know until you've used FireRecord or AVCVideoCap.

FireRecord: do have do buy that?

No. It's free.

thank you for the links to the developer site... now if it would just let me register...

you're welcome. Once you download the SDK or FireRecord, and figure out if the firewire out from your STB is active, you can move forward.

thanks..
i downloaded and installed the SDK this morning, but had to go to work (TV Station).

i'll try it later..

Here is the command line utility i wrote to change channel on 4250HD .

Usage: AVCTuner -c xx or AVCTuner -d -c xx ( for debug) or simply AVCTuner to get help.

This little app works perfectly for me, thanks so much. There is one problem, though - I don't seem to be able to get FireRecord to call it to change channels. I've set the channel change preference for my box to AppleScript and placed a "tuning.txt" file in ~/Library/Application Support/FireRecord which has in it "do shell script (path to AVCTuner) -c <major>". As far as I can tell, the script isn't being executed - if I just put a "do dialog" command in it, I never see the dialog. Has anyone gotten this to work? It's not the end of the world, since my box has a record timer and can tune itself.

One other thing - is anyone else on Charter Communications, and perhaps has an idea why (almost) all of the SD channels have no video, only audio over the firewire? MPEG Streamclip shows a video stream, but it appears to be blank white. HD channels all come through fine - even the premiums - but the only SD channels I've been able to get are the subchannels of the local stations and the Music Choice channels. Is this due to 5C? I'd have thought that would prevent me recording the channels at all.

eta: disregard the second part above - I just checked and VLC can play the recordings from the SD channels. Maybe a bug in Streamclip?

Just a quick follow-up... VLC can play my recorded SD channels, but it can't export them. Well, it can, but the resulting files have the audio and video out of sync and the audio stutters and drops out (pause, then play gets the audio back). Handbrake has the same problem, but ffmpegx can get me a usable file.

Since MPEG Streamclip uses the Quicktime MPEG2 component, I'm assuming there's something about the video stream that's making QT barf. While I can use ffmpegx to get the video to a usable format, I'd like to be able to edit out pre- and post- show garbage before transcoding. Does anyone know of a good MPEG-2 editor for Mac that doesn't use QT?

Alright, there are 67 pages in this thread, and tons of other threads elsewhere but no answers for my very direct question. Here's what I'm trying to do:


Time Warner Cable
Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300HDC
iMac 24", Core 2 Duo 2.13GHz, 2GB RAM, 7300GT Video


I have the SA 8300HDC plugged into the iMac via firewire. I can open up AVCBrowser, see the device, open the device and even control the device via Firewire. I would like to STREAM video from device to iMac. I don't want to record on my iMac. The 8300HDC does that already. I just want to use my iMac as a TV, and have one less thing cluttering up my limited space.

When I hit START PLAYER, it opens up VLC. Once VLC is open, it's just kinda . . . hanging out. So I hit play. Then the player says udp://@:41394 and just sits there. It opens no window to display a picture of any sort, no errors, just the udp nonsense.

I've opened up iRecord and can record to a file and take up bytes - unless I make a future event and tell it a particular channel, then it's 0 bytes.

I can use AVCVideoCap to also make a file with a byte count. NONE of the files will play on my iMac, regardless of using VLC or some other player. They open in VLC and then when I push play it goes back to being stopped immediately, as if the file is "done" just like that.

Can anybody offer any suggestions for me?
:confused:

Forget streaming.

If you can't manually record anything successfully with FireRecord or AVCVideoCap to your iMac, not even a few minutes of any program, and then open that file up and play it back with VLC, that usually means your firewire out is inactive, everything is encrypted, or miss-flagged. If you can't record, you can't "stream" and can't just use your Mac as a TV.

Forget streaming.

If you can't manually record anything successfully with FireRecord or AVCVideoCap to your iMac, not even a few minutes of any program, and then open that file up and play it back with VLC, that usually means your firewire out is inactive, everything is encrypted, or miss-flagged. If you can't record, you can't "stream" and can't just use your Mac as a TV.

how to determine which of these solutions is the actual case?

I'm afraid it doesn't much matter. Assuming you're using the software correctly, you're not able to record anything on any channel, including the network broadcasts.

If you read this thread, two general kinds of posts emerge: the first, "I'm on x cable with y STB and can't get it to work at all" and the second, "I'm able to record over firewire, which is great, but now I'd like more control and features in the software in order to make it viable."

Next step for you, back to the cable company to specifically request a box with the firewire port enabled. They're supposed to give you one, if you request it.
Since I'm with Comcast and have an SA3250, I haven't paid too close attention to this, but it seems like none of the Time Warner customers with 8300s have been successful--it may be that TW doesn't activate firewire on any DVR and just on their non-DVR boxes, and then only when requested.

Best to tap into some other locals trying to do the same thing. It may be that TW where you live couldn't care less.

hActually, it does matter. If his firewire is already enabled but the cable company is applying encryption. They should not be doing this, at least on the network channels, but getting them to stop that could be a lot harder than getting a new cable box.

With your existing box you should be able to tell the encryption level of the programs you're trying to record. Search this thread for the phrases "copy once" or "copy freely". I believe that information is available within AVCVideoCap and is not unique to the cable box. If you find that the flag is set to "copy freely", then it probably is the box.

Since Comcast updated its program guide (and probably pushed a software update to the box), I haven't been able to record via Firewire any programs saved to the DVR.

When I start the recording via Firerecord or AVCVideocap, the saved DVR program freezes, as if I hit the pause button. Hitting the buttons on the remote do nothing until I stop the recording.

It doesn't seem to happen when recording live shows.

Anyone else notice this?

I never had problems recording via Firewire until the last week or so.

well time warner in central ny has it when you hook up your firewire from the mac to the 8300 box it shuts down,the mac sees the 8300 box but it disconnects,and they have been doing this for a year,1.is this legal.2 has anybody in central ny got this to work

Hi Tweeg,

I also am having the same issue with FireRecord -- even a simple dialog Applescript, tested first in Script Editor, is not called with the channel change.

I will also email the developer about this, but as I know he is quite busy, has anyone else been able to get the channel changing to work from FireRecord? I'm using 0.5h.

Thanks,
Graham.

Hey,

I haven't bean able to read all the posts up until now, but here is the AppleScript status for FireRecord/iRecord:

1) For it executing scripts -
I added some code to call an Applescript for a guy around 2 years ago, and it seemed to work for him. To be honest I don't even remember the details all that well. I've suddenly had a lot of interest in that ability - I'm guessing there is some new device or another program available where this is helpful. I will look at again tonight.

One thing I think I remember is that it does not want a compiled script from the script editor. It needs a text file with the actual Applescript text, because the OS libraries I am using are ones that compile the script and execute on the fly. I had a test script that just opened a Finder window and it worked at the time. I will try to find again.

2) For it being scriptable by other programs -
It might take some work to make it fully scriptable in the sense people have talked about. What I have been looking at instead is being able to sync up with a user-specified calendar in iCal as a source for recording events. I've done some prototyping and it looks pretty straightforward. iCal is very scriptable, so any script or other program would simple make an event in there instead of FireRecord, and FireRecord would stay in sync with those events automatically. iCal doesn't even need to be open depending on how the other program/script does it.

I haven't had a lot of time to work on this, but have made some progress and I think I can resolve #1 pretty quickly.

Hi kaadray,

thanks for your quick reply. I can confirm that with 0.h on my Mac Pro running MacOS 10.5.4, a non-compiled text script (tested first in Script Editor but then saved as a text file by BBEdit) does not call.

The iCal idea sounds great -- it is very easy to access by script and would be a great workaround -- I suspect there would not be as much control over location etc. but I suspect for most people they only have one device and one default location on their hard drive (at least until that one fills up and they switch it to another).

If everyone is interested, I could program a MacProgramGuide script that would schedule FireRecord events in iCal in the expected format and offer it to everyone (and/or give it to kaadray to offer with FireRecord).

Thanks,
Graham Jones
(developer of iEye Captain for EyeTV)

Does anyone know if the USB connection between a MacBook and an external hard drive is fast enough to support streaming straight from a consumer electronics device, such as a firewire-equipped DVR to the external hard drive? I see that Paul has had some luck using an external eSATA drive, but a quick and probably not very competent search did not turn up that answer.

It should be fast enough, at least as long as it's USB 2.0 hi-speed. The highest bit rate I've seen from my cable box is about 13Mbps, which should be no problem.

lysistbp, If you just want to watch TV on your computer without recording, your best option is to use a video capture card since the firewire output won't give you most of the channels. Pinnacle, Hauppauge, El Gato, and others make them. This way, you can receive all of the channels from your DVR. I don't know if your DVR has a coaxial-out port, but some of the TV tuners also accept breakout cables to receive composite and S-video. If you want HDTV on the computer, see if the Blackmagic Intensity (http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/) will work for you. However, you'll need a Mac Pro, hopefully someone will come out with an HDMI Express Card for those of us with laptops.

I don't know if AVCBrowser will recognize the signal coming in with any of these units. If not, then you can just use EyeTV software with the TV tuners and the breakout cables.


Alright, there are 67 pages in this thread, and tons of other threads elsewhere but no answers for my very direct question. Here's what I'm trying to do:


Time Warner Cable
Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300HDC
iMac 24", Core 2 Duo 2.13GHz, 2GB RAM, 7300GT Video


I have the SA 8300HDC plugged into the iMac via firewire. I can open up AVCBrowser, see the device, open the device and even control the device via Firewire. I would like to STREAM video from device to iMac. I don't want to record on my iMac. The 8300HDC does that already. I just want to use my iMac as a TV, and have one less thing cluttering up my limited space.

When I hit START PLAYER, it opens up VLC. Once VLC is open, it's just kinda . . . hanging out. So I hit play. Then the player says udp://@:41394 and just sits there. It opens no window to display a picture of any sort, no errors, just the udp nonsense.

I've opened up iRecord and can record to a file and take up bytes - unless I make a future event and tell it a particular channel, then it's 0 bytes.

I can use AVCVideoCap to also make a file with a byte count. NONE of the files will play on my iMac, regardless of using VLC or some other player. They open in VLC and then when I push play it goes back to being stopped immediately, as if the file is "done" just like that.

Can anybody offer any suggestions for me?
:confused:

Hi,

So at first i couldnt open the device at all with AVCBrowser, but then after i used AVCVideoCap to capture like a minute of something or rather, I could. Now when i open the device, it opens nicely however there are no input plugs for me to connect to. I can connect fine to the output plug using channel 63. I can watch and record both HD and SD video with no issue, however i cannot use the built in channel changer to switch channels. This means i cant set it up to automatically record media on different channels :(..

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks

I cannot use the built in channel changer to switch channels. This means I can't set it up to automatically record media on different channels

That's right, that's why relying on this method is less polished and less than ideal--if you read through this thread there's always a lot of manual effort involved in recording over firewire--but for many HD channels it is the only way to get a recording onto your Mac.

I record from an SA3250, what do you mean when you talk about "input" and "output" plugs? The only "plugs" involved here are the firewire ports, of which the 3250 usually has two. Just run a cable from one of them to your Mac. I'm using FireRecord these days, and I don't try to tune the 3250 with the Mac--just change the channel on the 3250 to what you want to record and start an immediate event or set a timed event.

Hi,

So at first i couldnt open the device at all with AVCBrowser, but then after i used AVCVideoCap to capture like a minute of something or rather, I could. Now when i open the device, it opens nicely however there are no input plugs for me to connect to. I can connect fine to the output plug using channel 63. I can watch and record both HD and SD video with no issue, however i cannot use the built in channel changer to switch channels. This means i cant set it up to automatically record media on different channels :(..

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks

Typically you don't need the input plugs to be connected. My A4250 doens't have input plugs defined either, but as long as the output plug is set to channel 0 then everything streams correctly.

it streams perfectly, i have no problems watching or recording SD or HD content. The issue is i cannot control the device, so i cannot set up scripts to record shows on different channels at different times.

Since Comcast updated its program guide (and probably pushed a software update to the box), I haven't been able to record via Firewire any programs saved to the DVR.

When I start the recording via Firerecord or AVCVideocap, the saved DVR program freezes, as if I hit the pause button. Hitting the buttons on the remote do nothing until I stop the recording.

It doesn't seem to happen when recording live shows.

Anyone else notice this?

I never had problems recording via Firewire until the last week or so.

I have the exact same problem with comcast. I was previously able to firewire recorded programs when playing on the Motorolla 6412, but now I can only record live programs. Anyone figure out a way to make this work. I want the DVR to time and record and move the programs I really want to save over, freeing up my DVR space.

Let me know if you figure anything out.